New home sales for November: at last, a bright spot! (relatively speaking) New home sales are very volatile, and heavily revised. But they frequently are the first housing metrics to turn. And November’s new home sales report suggests that they may indeed have made their low. Last month new home sales increased to 640,000 annualized, […]
From the New York Times comes this list of trends in real estate, houses, mortgages, and the impact on buyers and sellers. The State of Real Estate Whether you’re renting, buying or selling, here’s a look at real estate trends. Rising mortgage rates. Faltering home sales. Skyrocketing rents. We spoke with economists, mortgage brokers and […]
Just finished “Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the making of a postwar stalemate” by Mary Sarotte. The book was recommended to me by Bruce Cochrane. It is an excellent insight into current events in Ukraine today. The title comes from the assurance given by then-Secretary of State James Baker to Mikhail Gorbachev that German […]
Real personal income and spending hold up (thank you, lower gas prices!) but still consistent with onset of recession This morning’s report on personal income and spending for November shows why I pay more attention to real retail sales as a forecasting tool. First, to the data: personal income increased nominally by 0.3% in November, […]
Durable goods orders appear to have peaked [Note: I’ll post about personal income and spending, as well as new home sales, later.] I normally don’t pay much attention to the monthly durable goods report, but this morning’s report for November appears significant. That’s because durable goods spending has been one of the few short leading […]
Initial claims continue in range; why they will give us a lead on when the Sahm rule for recessions may be triggered Initial claims ticked up 2,000 last week to 216,000. The 4 week moving average declined 6,250 to 221,750. Continued claims, with a one week delay, declined 6,000 to 1.670 million: To state the […]
November existing home sales: prices have unequivocally turned down – by New Deal democrat Existing home sales do not have much actual economic impact, since the primary economic activity generated by housing is the construction. But they do help tell us a great deal about pricing. For the record, sales continued their relentless decline this […]
by David Zetland (originally published at The one-handed economist) I’m not shy about criticizing the weakest elements of economics (there are many), so it’s sometimes a good idea to remind myself (and you!) of the strengths of economics, i.e., those characteristics that make it useful. Here’s an example based on a test-question I just asked: […]
This Life: faith, work, and free time, part two At the beginning of this year, I posted a response to Martin Hägglund’s This Life: Secular faith and spiritual freedom. In October I learned of a conference next May in Belgium at which Hägglund will be one of the keynote speakers. So I submitted an abstract to present a paper. […]
I am not sure if you experienced similar. A year ago getting Delta Airlines customer service on the line took hours. And if you left a phone number, they never called back. I found calling them when they first opened up seemed to work. 6 AM? One time we even got better seats. Getting airline […]