Many of my posts have chronicled the soaring cost of housing and resulting difficulty that many people face in acquiring a home. The problem is particularly acute for first time buyers, 49% of whom report requiring family assistance to make the necessary down...
McKinsey Global Institute produced a massive white paper (The Next Big Arenas of Competition October 2024) on the industries that are likely to enjoy outsized future growth and transform the global landscape. These “arenas” are expected to be centers of competition, innovation, and...
Bloomberg ran an article on April 28th pointing out that we will likely see supply disruptions even if the trade war ends soon. As shown below, the number of cargo ships departing China for the U.S. is down roughly 40% from one month...
Most Americans have more than a casual interest in the price of their home given that home equity represents 45% of the median homeowner’s net worth. Thanks to Nobel Prize winner Robert Shiller, we have home price data from 1890 onward although I...
The rapid changes in the Administration’s tariff policies create the possibility that anything I write will instantly be out of date. Nevertheless, there is a new development that could have important ramifications for the production of many types of products in the U.S....
Just three weeks ago, I posted a blog titled A Cloudy Crystal Ball that raised a caution flag based on four consecutive months of declining consumer confidence. Well, the newest report, which was released on April 11th, was 12% lower than the February...
