Tag Archives: Hot Topics

Housing permits and starts stabilize, but construction comes close to generating yellow recession caution signal  – by New Deal democrat There was good news and bad news in this morning’s report on housing permits, starts, and construction. The good news is that both permits and starts stabilized after last month’s initially reported multi-year lows. The bad news is that single family permits declined further, and even worse the metric best...

 – by New Deal democrat One item I meant to address with this week’s existing and new home sales data was the relative difference in price in the two, and the effect on the relative share of the market.  I am following up now because yesterday Kevin Drum put up a post yesterday in which he concluded that “The price of a new house is now below its pre-pandemic trendline and heading toward its 2020 level . . . When the Fed finally gets around to...

From the NYT: After Hamas led a deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, Israeli officials declared a siege of Gaza, and they have severely restricted the entry of humanitarian aid, saying they do not want it to help Hamas. From October to early May, the daily number of aid trucks entering the territory through the two main crossing points in southern Gaza dropped by around 75 percent, according to U.N. data, and reports of hunger and malnourishment...

An abbreviated portion of Preston Mui’s “Where High Rates are Restricting Investment,” Employ America. This portion of his economic commentary discusses housing and in particular Multifamily. Preston Mui: The Federal Reserve has held rates at the current level for nearly a year. The majority of the committee appears confident that monetary policy is currently restrictive. From the perspective of their confidence, the question for monetary policy...

 – by New Deal democrat This week’s data focuses on house prices and new home sales, and the more important personal income and spending report on Friday. In the housing data I am looking at any movement towards rebalancing between new and existing home sales. To recapitulate, the big increase in mortgage rates has locked up the existing home market, increasing the share of new houses as to total sales.  With existing homes, we saw inventory...

I got my first COVID shot in August 2020 as part of the Moderna Phase III trial. Since then, I’ve had four additional jabs. Today, I’ll get another booster with the latest Moderna vaccine. I’m looking forward to it. I did contract COVID last November during a trip to Colorado. I tested positive for a few days and had mild symptoms, but completely recovered. The vaccine doesn’t prevent you from getting infected, it keeps you out of the ED and the...

“But then, in 2022“, the Justice Clarence Thomas-authored Bruen decision suggested all gun regulations had to line up with the understanding of firearms the founders had when they wrote the Constitution. “ It seems to me that if Bruen is taken very literally, it implies that the 2nd amendment only applies to muzzle loading firearms: muskets, rifles, and pistols. The founders did not imagine AR15s. How could they have regulated (or forbid...

The last decade has seen many initiatives toward clean, green, and low-carbon energy, as well as a global shift toward electric vehicles and automation. Many of these initiatives were enabled rare earth magnets, which is why rare earth magnets are heavily used now and will continue to be used in the future. When my dad retired as a chemical engineer for Martin-Marietta at the age of 62, he started a one-man company based on a patent he was awarded. It...

 – by New Deal democrat I’ve written repeatedly in the past few months that I am paying especial attention to the manufacturing and construction sectors for signs of weakness now that the supply chain tailwind for the economy has ended. At the beginning of this month, one show appeared to have dropped, as the ISM report on manufacturing showed contraction for the second month in a row, declining slightly to 48.7, with the more leading new orders...

 – by New Deal democrat There was good news and not so good news in this morning’s two important data releases.  I’ll start with the good news. Both total industrial production and its manufacturing component increased a sharp 0.9% in May. Even after downward revisions of -0.4% in March and -0.3% in April, both were still up 0.5% compared with where we thought we were one month ago: The only fly in the ointment is that both are still...