Archive for August 2017

The Friday File: The shortest scheduled passenger flight is between the Orkney Islands of Westray and Papa Westray. The distance of the flight is 1.7 miles, and with a good tailwind can be flown in under a minute. The cost of the flight, $22.10. $13/mile is very pricey! The longest flight, 9,032 miles from Auckland,…

Household debt rose for the 12th straight quarter in 17Q2, and is $12.8 trillion, a record. However, it’s just 67% of GDP, compared to 87% in 08Q3, when household debt last peaked. But, credit card and auto loan delinquencies are rising, albeit from low levels, despite debt service payments being just 10% of disposable income,…

While retail sales jumped 0.6% in July, and May and June were upwardly revised, don’t conclude that consumer spending, 70% of GDP, is necessarily great. Retail sales including food service sales equal $2.4 trillion/year, 20% of consumer spending. Consumer spending also includes $2.0 trillion in healthcare spending, $2.0 trillion in housing and utilities, $300 billion…

Among western industrialized nations, Singapore’s homeownership rate is tops; 90.8%, Norway follows at 82.8%, then Iceland at 77.8%, Italy at 72.9%, Finland at 72.7%, Luxembourg at 72.5%, Belgium at 71.3%, Sweden at 70.6%, Ireland at 68.6%, Netherlands at 67.8%, Canada at 67.6%, Israel at 67.3%, Australia at 67%, France at 65%, New Zealand at 64.8%,…

The Friday File: The largest sporting event in the world, by number of athletes, was the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics which included 11,237 athletes. Second was the 2015 African Games held in Brazzaville, Congo which counted 15,000 athletes, coaches, and officials. In third, the 2017 Maccabiah Games held in Jerusalem, Israel involving 10,000 athletes, while…

When western democracies hit peak manufacturing employment in the early 1970s, national income was about $20,000/person and manufacturing employment was 30% of total employment. When the next wave of nations including Brazil and South Korea hit peak manufacturing employment in 1990, income was $7,500/person and manufacturing’s employment share was 22%. The newest nations to hit…

While the current economic expansion is the weakest ever, averaging just 2.1% GDP growth/year, the second weakest was the previous recovery which ended with the Great Recession. The third weakest, the recovery before that, which was the longest recovery ever; 10 years. This suggests the slow economic growth we are experiencing is structural in nature…

Two weeks ago the Fed met and, unsurprisingly, gave no indication that a rate rise was is the offing; inflation is too weak. Instead, the Fed strongly suggested they will commence reducing their holdings of long-dated debt following their meeting in mid-September. If, however, there’s a congressional standoff over raising the debt ceiling (imagine that),…

With 209,000 net new jobs in July and YTD average monthly employment gains averaging 184,000, just below the 187,000 in CY16, job growth is excellent. The employment-to-population ratio at 60.2% is at its best level since 2/09, and the unemployment rate declined to 4.3% despite a large rise in the labor force. Better yet, M-o-M…