Archive for December 2019

Last month, women comprised exactly 50% of employed persons in the US. The last and only other time this occurred was in 2009-2010, when male employment collapsed due to the massive loss of manufacturing and construction jobs during the Great Recession. From 8/09-3/10 women were 50.1% of employed persons! Today the rise is the result…

While the average price of a Christmas tree in 2018 was $76.35, there was great variation over time. On 11/23/18, Black Friday, the first major tree buying day, the average price was $79.11. It then peaked at $83.92 on 11/26/18, Cyber Monday. It then steadily declined to a low of $50.34 on Christmas Eve. The…

In an effort to boost the value of Aramco (Saudi Arabian Oil Company) to $2 trillion, the Saudis reduced the offering size to just 1.5% from 5%, listed it on the Saudi stock exchange and not in NY or London, and marketed heavily to domestic investors willing to overpay. Now local shareholders are directly dependent…

At 24.3% of GDP, the US tax burden is lower than all but three OECD (36 western democracies) nations; Chile, Ireland and Mexico. The US tax rate is exactly 10 percentage points lower than the OECD average rate. In 2000, before the Bush tax cuts, US taxes were 28.3% of GDP, 5.5 percentage points below…

This past Sunday, former Fed Chairman extraordinaire Paul Volker died. During his helm (1979-1987), he unequivocally changed economic history. He not only fought relentlessly for central bank independence but slayed runaway 1970s inflation. Because of the latter, he was one of the most unpopular Fed chairmen ever as he singlehandedly caused two recessions. With President…

Net jobs growth of 266,000 in November, along with upward revisions to September and October totaling 41,000, and a slight decline in the unemployment rate to 3.5% makes this a solid job report. Better yet, average job growth over the past three months has averaged 205,000, the best since 1/19. The only clear weakness, wage…

The Friday File: In October 2019, a bottle of whisky sold at auction for $1.9 million, breaking the previous record of $1.5 million set in 2018. Both bottles come from Macallan cask 263 (European Oak) distilled in 1926 and bottled in 1986. Assuming a shot is 1 ounce, the 700-milliliter bottle has 25 shots, which…

In 2018, US CO2 emissions rose 2.7% to 5.27 billion metric tons. However, CO2 emissions have declined in six of the past 10 years and remain 12% lower than their 2005 peak despite the economy being 25% larger in inflation-adjusted terms. This is partly because creating a million dollars of GDP requires 29% less CO2…

Residential real estate commissions typically are 6%, split between buyer and seller agents. Importantly, the seller pays the commission to both agents. If the seller offered less, selling agents wouldn’t show the home. Thus, commissions stay high, but the median Realtor earned just $49,000 in 2018. The lure of high commissions entices many to become…

Just 9.8% of Americans changed their residence between 2018 and 2019, the lowest percentage since such record keeping began in 1947/48! This new low is occurring amidst the weakest population growth on record, limited immigration and an aging society. Most troubling, however, just 20% of those between the ages of 18-34 (Millennials) moved this year,…