Archive for June 2015

With Anthem trying to buy CIGNA, UnitedHealth wanting to takeover Aetna, while Aetna looks to buy Humana, frenzied healthcare consolidation has arrived. Insures are bulking up to battle increasingly large hospital chains who want to renegotiate discounts to offset lower reimbursement rates for fast growing number of Medicaid and Medicare patients, while more lucrative employer-sponsored…

Today is the 800-year anniversary of the Magna Carta. It is a document which inspired the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, and other than English, is Great Britain’s greatest export. The Magna Carta didn’t create democracy, but put limits on the behavior of the Sovereign, eventually leading to parliamentary democracy as…

The Friday File: The lowest grossing movie in history is Zyzzyz Road, which grossed a total of $30, followed closely by Storage 24, which grossed $72. The biggest box office bomb ever: 47 Ronin, which lost a cool $150 million in 2013. Compared to those movies, United Passions, made by soccer’s governing body FIFA and…

Residential construction employment rose by 8,500 in May and by 149,000 over the past year. The steepest annual wage growth among construction workers was for heavy and civil engineering construction at 5.1%, next came residential building at 4.8%. Moreover, the number of unemployed jobseekers last working in construction is just 569,000, the lowest May total…

May’s seasonally adjusted annual sales rate of 17.8 million vehicles, the best since 7/05, was terrific! Moreover, the average sales price was $33,363 a rise of 4.3% since 5/14. Fewer fleet sales helped, but low gas prices caused elevated truck and SUV sales. The average new car loan is now 67 months, with loans between…

After reaching a high of 121.9 million in November 2007, the ranks of the full-time employed plummeted to a cyclical low of 111.0 million in October 2009, a loss of 10.7 million jobs. Today, the number of full-time workers is 121.4 million, and should hit a new high in August, 7.75 years after the start…

May’s employment data was excellent! Payrolls rose by 280,000, upward revisions were made to prior months, and because the labor force participation rate grew 0.1% for the second month in a row, the unemployment rate increase from 5.4% to 5.5% is good. Moreover, average hourly earnings were up 2.3% year-over-year, continuing their slow rise and…

The Friday File: While American Pharoah is a 3-5 favorite to win the Belmont Stakes and in the process be the first winner of the Triple Crown since 1978, he has a tough road. The Belmont is the longest race of the three, five of the seven competitors skipped the Preakness, and one skipped both…

After recording negative Q1 GDP growth for the third time in five years, the Commerce Department is convinced its seasonal adjustment factors are working poorly. Therefore, they will revise recent quarterly GDP growth numbers, but annual GDP growth will remain unchanged. Following this statistical shuffle, past and future Q1 GDP numbers will look slightly better…