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The Friday File: In 2024 it cost 3.7 cents to make a penny; 2006 was when it last cost less than a penny to make one. In 2024 the mint produced 3.2 billion pennies and lost $85.3 million in the process. The downside, people use more nickels which cost 14 cents. The US stopped minting…

If additional 25% tariffs are imposed on Canada/Mexico, along with the recently imposed 10% tariff on China, that likely leads to a 0.75 percentage point increase in inflation. If 60% tariffs are imposed on China and full reciprocal tariffs are imposed on all nations, that would probably lead to upwards of a 2-percentage point rise…

How much fraud is there in the federal government? A GAO report dated 4/24, pre-Trump, suggests somewhere between $233 billion and $521 billion in direct annual financial losses from fraud, based on a review of FY18-FY22 data. The report finds Treasury suffers the greatest percentage of fraud, with it consuming 23.87% of its budget, followed…

Seventy-three thousand homes were pulled from sale in December, representing almost 1 in 10 homes on the market, a 64% Y-o-Y surge, and the biggest December jump since 2015. There is clearly significantly more desire to sell than buy. This tells us that much of the inventory that hit the market in 2024 just sat…

January retail sales were down a substantial 0.9%, the biggest monthly decline in almost two years and well worse than the expected 0.2% decline. Car sales fell, as did sales at most stores. There have been occasional blooper months since 2020, but they have never been a harbinger of anything. More importantly, last month was…

The Friday File: In 1983, Alexa was the 745th most popular name with about 200 girls receiving it. It then steadily rose, peaking in 2006 at 39th most popular, with over 6,100 girls given the name. By 2014, when Amazon introduced Alexa, it was the given name of 4,000 girls. It oddly spiked to 6,000…

A recent Home Street report finds climate change will reduce US home values by $1.47 trillion by 2055. Some perspective please: while $1.47 trillion sounds enormous, the current value of US residential property is $52 trillion. If home values rise by 3.75%/year, which is low, that would make the residential stock worth $156 trillion in…

In the first four months of FY25, the budget deficit totaled $838 billion; $306 billion more Y-o-Y. Revenues were $11 billion higher, outlays were $317 billion higher. But some of the increase was due to calendar effects. Absent them the deficit would have been $750 billion. Despite the large rise, the CBO still projects the…

By reducing US demand for imports, tariffs reduce the supply of dollars flowing to foreigners. That reduced supply raises the foreign exchange value of the dollar. While a stronger dollar reduces inflation, it makes US exports more expensive. This partly offsets some of the benefits of the tariffs. To reduce imports but boost exports a…

January net job growth was a decent 143,000, Nov/Dec were upwardly revised by 100,000, and the unemployment rate fell to 4%, its best level since 5/24. But the workweek slid to 34.1 hours, the lowest reading since 3/20, and quite surprisingly, wages rose a very strong 0.5%. I suspect the Fed keys in on the…