As I was reading the Economic Report of the President, I figured it was time to revisit the issue of gasoline prices and the role played by refinery margins. Our graph shows the retail price per gallon relative to the consumer price index (January 2006 = 1.00) from January 2000 – when the real gasoline […]

I know about legacy costs and all that, but could it be that news like this has something to do with the gradual shrinking of GM and Ford, and the steady growth of the Japanese auto brands? NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) – Japanese carmakers — or, more specifically, Honda followed by Toyota and Subaru — took […]

The House Price Index was just released this morning with the data on house prices in the US for all of 2005. The press release discusses its results for the US as a whole, reporting that: Average U.S. home prices increased 12.95 percent from the fourth quarter of 2004 through the fourth quarter of 2005. […]

There’s a new data release out this morning on personal income and spending. The highlights: Personal income increased $75.2 billion, or 0.7 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $50.2 billion, or 0.5 percent, in January, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $76.7 billion, or 0.9 percent. In December, […]

News like this makes me shake my head in bewilderment. Or maybe not… maybe it just confirms my presumption that market participants are not always particularly rational. SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Shares of Google Inc. dropped sharply Tuesday but recovered some of the earlier losses prompted by the chief financial officer’s comment that the company’s […]

Warning: This post is probably more for my own benefit than for anyone else’s edification. If you’re tired of arguing about trade, then skip this post. And if you’re not interested in reading about some rather technical economic research, then skip this post. On the other hand, if you’ve always wanted to see examples of […]

This morning the BEA released its second estimate of fourth quarter GDP. The estimate for GDP growth was revised up substantially, but the level was still very low, and the upward revision was no more than most observers had hoped for. Comparing to the BEA’s first estimate: The preliminary estimate of the fourth-quarter increase in […]

The Census Bureau report released this morning showed January New Home Sale were still strong. In fact, on a Not Seasonally Adjusted basis, January 2006 was the strongest January on record. Following is a graph of NSA January New Home Sales showing 2006 is a new record. Click on graph for larger image. The strong […]

William Buckley says It Didn’t Work: One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. The same edition of the paper quotes a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Reuel Marc Gerecht backed the American intervention. He now speaks of the bombing of the especially sacred Shiite mosque in Samara and what […]

Bill Polley responds to my critique of Michael Darda: China made a decision over a decade ago to fix its currency to the dollar. This was before the massive explosion of growth and before the Asian financial crisis. They have managed one of the most successful hard pegs in the region, and it probably saved […]