US nonfarm payrolls added 467,000 jobs in January, easily beating expectations. The January data reflects annual benchmark revisions, as well as updates to seasonal adjustments. The revised data now shows more robust payroll growth over the past 13 months, with an average monthly gain of 549,000 (see first chart). Private payrolls posted a 444,000 gain […]
Originally published October 2021. The founder of modern economics, Adam Smith, was no fan of the merchants of his time. He regarded them as among the most responsible for how “the mercantile system”, as Smith called it, accorded legal privileges to politically connected producers over the interests of consumers. Nor did Milton Friedman have a […]
Inflation in the United States was over 7% in 2021. This is dramatically higher than just a couple of years ago when it was less than 2% per year. Why did it go up? The most obvious answer – and the one consistent with an extraordinarily large amount of evidence – is the dramatic increase […]
In a year-end review of polling and politics, one of America’s leading national pollsters, Scott Rasmussen, says most Americans have higher priorities than politics. And he says partisan thinking about race, particularly among Democrats, hasn’t kept up with demographic realities. Marc Ang: What is the state of polling today? Rasmussen: “People think polls they agree […]
Which US asset classes perform best or worst amid periods of high inflation (6% or more)? Answer: commodities perform best, while bills perform worst. It’s commonly recognised that bonds are not a good inflation hedge – and they aren’t – but less recognised is that equities also fail in this regard; each has returned only […]
The Midwest region is a broad geography encompassing the Great Lakes and upper Mississippi and Ohio River watersheds. Major cities in the area include well-known names like Chicago and Detroit, and fast-growing smaller cities like Minneapolis and Columbus, OH. While the region has long been valued for its stability in the face of volatile commercial […]
Originally published April 2021. Imagine a grocery store of the future, located in your average middle-class suburb, somewhere in America. On the way to picking up the children from soccer practice, a mother quickly realises she forgot to get the ingredients for that night’s chicken parmesan. Fortunately for Mom, just before making the turn to […]
Former president Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit to block release of speech drafts, call logs and handwritten notes regarding the 6 January Capitol Clash. Trump is seeking to prohibit the National Archives from delivering those records to a congressional committee investigating the events of January 6th. President Joe Biden has refused to invoke executive privilege to […]
Ms Shrina Kurani, On 30 October I received from you a blast email requesting that I contribute to your political campaign. For reasons explained below, I’ll not do so. (The one and only time that I contributed money to a candidate for political office was 25 years ago and that was to a friend who ran […]
Sales of new single-family homes posted a strong gain in September, increasing 14.0% to 800,000 at a seasonally adjusted annual rate from a 702,000 pace in August. Despite the gain, sales are down 17.6% from the year-ago level and are 19.4% below the 993,000 pace in January (see top of first chart). The drop in […]
