Consumer confidence has reached the highest level in seventeen years. The stock market has hit record highs. Is that a coincidence or a real relationship? Almost all economic data is related to other economic data. But c onsumer confidence is more closely related to the level of unemployment than the stock market. When jobs are plentiful, consumer confidence is higher. Likewise, plentiful jobs indicate the…
I am a Supply-side economist . . . some of the time. I am a Keynesian economist . . . some of the time. And, I am an Austrian economist . . . some of the time. There is a time and a place for each of the three major schools of economics. Supply-side economics and Keynesian economics are useful for “jump-starting” a moribund economy. …
News from Fox News is considered true-news by Republicans. Democrats consider most news from Fox News as fake-news. This is the partisan perspective, and it is unfortunate that we take such a binary view of news. It is far too multi-faceted for binary views. There are more than two perspectives. All the major news sources — Fox, CNN, MSNBC, networks, etc. — are overly U.S.…
I was not captain of my high school football team, nor did I ever date a cheerleader. Long ago, I accepted the reality that I would never be President of the United States, nor even an Army general. That was fine for me but is not fine for many other people, unfortunately. Wellschmerz is the German word for that emotional problem that develops when one realizes…
The S&P 500 has set 54 new all-time highs so far this year. Most believe the elevated level of the stock market is due to the flooding of cash into the economy by the Fed since 2009. That was an important factor but is decreasingly so, as the Fed reduces its balance sheet by selling off some of its bonds and raising interest rates.. More…
In his iconic 1970 book Future Shock, Alvin Toffler pointed out how the rate of change was increasing. At first, it seemed to elaborate the obvious. However, deeper analysis demonstrated that the rate of change was feeding on itself and would continue to increase at a faster and faster rate. He argued that we need to increase the speed of our decision-making to accommodate the…
There is a difference between trust and respect. For example, I have no trust for the giant investment house of Goldman Sachs but have great respect for them, especially their research. Their latest forecast is (1) that the stock market should be as strong in 2018 as in 2017 and (2) that, if Trump doesn’t get a “win” on tax reform, he will be too…
It started as a trickle and soon became a stream and now it is a river. The current news coverage on sexual harassment has focused our attention on a low profile but very real problem. This is a good thing! First, there can be no justification or excuse for sexual harassment, but a little perspective is always helpful. About 17 years ago, I worked with…
So, the central banks in the United States, Canada, and England have all started to raise interest rates, as part of their normalization after the global financial crisis. The ECB says they will also — someday. Rising interest rates push that country’s currency exchange rates up. Since the ECB declined to raise rates last month, the euro has declined 2% against the dollar. That’s a…
Economists often advise people who cannot follow all the economic data each month to simply follow the monthly “jobs report” issued by the Department of Labor on the first Friday of each month, because the economy must be strong if the job market is strong. It includes the normal monthly unemployment rate. Some economists prefer the U-6 unemployment rate, which measures the long term unemployed. …
Let’s see . . . GDP growth last quarter was unexpectedly high at 3%, unemployment is very low, stock market values are up . . . it is small wonder that the latest Consumer Confidence Index is the highest in almost seventeen years. There is always another economic recession somewhere out there, but it is not visible on the horizon yet. Watching for an economic…
If you are one of my Democratic friends, please stop reading now. You won’t understand it and will have that silly “deer-in-the-headlights” look on your face. If you are one of my Republican friends, I have long agreed that the news media has a Democratic bias, at least a 51% bias. (However, since Fox-world has a 30% share of the news market, the Democratic bias…