United States

20 September 2016

The dollar-value of all the goods and services the US produces has never been larger.  Two other metrics capture the recovery.  These two Great Graphics come from the Wall Street Journal and draw from Census Bureau figures. The dollar-value of all the goods and services the US produces has never been larger.  Two other metrics...

Featured Articles

14 June 2016

Off to Electoral College

This infographic was in the Wall Street Journal on the US election.  It is important to remember that the US does not elect the President by direct popular vote.  This makes the national polls a bit misleading.  There are 538...

6 June 2016

Experts: Don’t Panic, it’s Just One Jobs Report

Editor’s note: The U.S. economy added a disappointing 38,000 jobs last month, the smallest number in more than five years, according to seasonally adjusted figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The weak numbers suggest a June interest rate hike – which...

19 April 2016

Are We Missing a Big Infrastructure Opportunity?

The US presidential selection process is well underway, and yet there has been no coherent discussion of fiscal policy.  In part, this is because it does not appear particularly urgent.  The US deficit peaked in 2009 at 10.1% of GDP. ...

11 March 2016

Why are People in the U.S. Still Going Hungry?

Unfortunately, even though the U.S. is bountiful and the world’s biggest individual exporter of food, millions of Americans actually are not. Each year the Department of Agriculture runs a nationwide survey to determine how many people go hungry. The latest...

9 November 2015

ISM Data Shows Services Leaving Manufacturing in the Dust

The October employment data convinced many that a Fed hike in December is a strong probability.  On top of the strongest average hourly earnings in several years, the US reported a record increase in September consumer credit.  Earlier last week, the US...

23 October 2015

We’re Raising Your Rent to ‘Out of Reach’

We just learned America’s rental affordability crisis is as bad as it has ever been. Unfortunately, it is about to get a whole lot worse.  The American Community Survey for 2014, released a few weeks ago, found that the number...

29 September 2015

New House Leadership to be more Confrontational?

Two developments make a shutdown of the US government on October 1 less likely.  First, the outgoing Speaker of the House made it clear he is determined to avoid the government shutdown, and with his resignation (as of the end...

14 September 2015

Fiscal Policy Dragging Down Monetary Policy

The big question these days is when the Federal Reserve will finally raise its target interest rate for the first time in almost a decade. Its monetary policy committee is meeting this week to decide whether to do just that....

26 August 2015

A Durable Report

The US dollar and equity futures responded favorably to the stronger than expected durable goods orders.  The sizable upward revision in the June shipments (from 0.3% to 0.9%) underscores expectations of an upward revision to Q2 GDP when reported tomorrow. ...