Posts Tagged ‘housing sales’
Foreign Focus
Entering 2014, the biggest economic risks include China and its increasing dependence on debt to fuel slowing growth, followed by Europe which will struggle to keep the euro intact if a recession hits. But these problems are both remote. Here, outside of natural disasters and political risk, geopolitical problems scare me most. When great nations…
Read MoreRecurring Revenue
The Friday File: Among the 10 songs with the most royalties, “The Christmas Song” (1944) at #10 with $19 million in royalties, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” (1961) at #6 with $27 million and “White Christmas” (1940) at #2 with $36 million have a Christmas theme. The highest grossing song ever is “Happy Birthday”…
Read MoreChristmas Consumption
Average US Christmas spending in 2013 is expected to be $704 per person 18 years and older. More interesting is the wild variation in this number from year to year. After rising from a trough of $690 in 2003, spending hit a peak of $866 in 2008, but fell sharply to $616 in 2009. This…
Read MoreMerry Christmas
In 2012, 24.5 million natural Christmas trees were purchased while 10.9 million manufactured trees were bought. The average price was $40.30 for a natural tree and $72.50 for plastic ones. Christmas tree sales hit a peak of 31.3 million natural trees and 17.4 million manufactured trees in 2007 and have been generally declining since. Between…
Read MoreBad Banks
While the Fed has pumped trillions into private banks via QE, banks have been loath to lend. While partly due to the rebuilding of bank capital and changing federal regulations, it’s also due to low rates. Making fixed rate loans makes no sense because as rates rise, loan values fall. Variable rate loans are also…
Read MoreLess Light
The Friday File: While switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs saves households $150/year, three-tenths-of-one-percent of household income, that so few have switched suggests that households don’t like these bulbs or are ignorant of the savings. Rather than banning the sale of 60W and 40W incandescents beginning 1/1/14, convince us to voluntarily buy them! Otherwise, any…
Read MoreIt’s a SNAP
The number of Americans receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as food stamps, fell from 47.665 million in August to 47.306 million in September, a decline of 0.75%, the biggest decline on record. In FY 2013, the number of persons on SNAP averaged 47.6 million, 15.2% of the population, and the average…
Read MoreBonded Bernanke
By perfectly calibrating his message, this time, Bernanke was able to taper yet see equities climb by 1.75% and bond prices barely budge. Quite a difference from this past May. By combining tapering with a commitment to keep short-term rates low into 2015, Bernanke has reduced uncertainty and compensated markets for the knowledge that QE…
Read MoreTaxing Discussion
While 43% of the population pay no federal income taxes, down from 47% in 2010, two-thirds of that 43% pay payroll taxes, leaving just 14.4% of the population that pay no federal income or payroll taxes. Of those, two-thirds are elderly with incomes below $20,000/year and one-quarter are nonelderly with equally low incomes. The remaining…
Read MoreBetter Budget
During October and November 2013 the federal deficit was $231 billion, $61 billion better than a year earlier. Receipts were up by $34 billion to $380 billion and outlays were down by $27 billion. At this rate, the deficit for all of FY14 will be 3.3% of GDP, down from 4.1% in FY13 and a…
Read More