The Bowtie Economist's Daily Dose of 70-Word Wisdom

President Biden’s student debt cancellation plans will cost between $870 billion and $1.4 trillion. $620 billion has already been spent, and the latest plan will cost between $250-$750 billion more. That’s more than will be spent on universal pre-K and…

While the Y-o-Y change in the 24Q1 Employment Cost Index (measuring wages, salaries, and quickly-rising benefits), came in at 4.2%, and the Q-o-Q reading was an uncomfortably hot 1.2%, this does not necessarily portend high inflation. The 24Q1 productivity reading…

If TikToc gets banned in the US, and that may take a while as the courts will be involved, the biggest winners are likely to be Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, and Alphabet’s YouTube and their respective video platforms Reels and…

The total value of American property, excluding farmland, is $66 trillion. Of that, 25% is commercial, and of that office space is probably $4 trillion. Between 2007 and 2009, US residential real estate lost a third of its value, which…

Based on a quarterly survey of active managerial job seekers, during calendar year 2020 5% of such individuals relocated to find new employment. In 2021, the percentage fell to 4%, in 2022, the percentage declined further to 3.75%, and in…

Pre-Covid, income growth for the lowest income quartile was almost 5%/year, while for the other quartiles growth was 3.5%/year. By mid-2022, income growth for the bottom and second highest quartiles peaked at almost 8%/year but was nearly 6% for the…

One reason the US economy has performed as well as it has despite rising rates and bank lending reluctance is the rise of private debt and equity. In 2008, banks and fund managers each had $12 trillion in assets. Today,…

March existing home sales slipped 4.3% M-o-M to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.19 million, the biggest M-o-M decline since 11/22. The February rise in mortgage rates undoubtedly hurt. Y-o-Y sales eased 3.7% to 4.35 million. March is now the…

The Friday File: The first American roller coaster was a stretch of repurposed coal mine railroad track in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley in 1873. The chuch-chuch sound comes from the 1910 invention of the safety ratchet that prevents coasters from rolling…