Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Real incomes and Presidential approval: most measures did not surpass pre-pandemic levels until 2023, or this year!

Real incomes and Presidential approval: most measures did not surpass pre-pandemic levels until 2023, or this year!  – by New Deal democrat This post is somewhat of a follow-up to one I wrote two weeks ago, about perceptions of income vs. inflation, as well as following up on yesterday’s post considering the electoral implications of […]

Spending soars, income stagnates, savings sink like the Titanic

Spending soars, income stagnates, savings sink like the Titanic  – by New Deal democrat Real life intruded yesterday, so I didn’t put up any information about the Q3 GDP report. I’ll write in detail next week, but in the meantime there were 4 basic highlights: 1. Obviously it was an excellent report overall. 2. The […]

Real income continues to set records, while real spending and real total sales falter

Real income continues to set records, while real spending and real total sales falter  – by New Deal democrat Real personal spending faltered in May, and real total sales continued to falter in April, as of this morning’s report; while real personal income continued to be aided by the big decline in gas prices that […]

The Murder Rate – A Regression with Many Variables

In this post, I want to look at the murder rate, by state. I ran a regression with the state murder rate for 2015 as the dependent variable, and literally threw the kitchen sink at it: demographics, weaponry, income, education, population density, etc. Basically, if its something some reasonable percentage of the population believes matters, […]

The rest of the dinner table deficit/debt discussion: Equity

I promise, there are numbers here, but lets have some fun first and write a screen play to set up the point. It is long, but…   “Dear, I’m getting nervous. We seem to keep adding to how much money we owe and our income hasn’t changed for the better. What can we do?”   […]

Wait. Canadians make more money than Americans? Yep.

David Zetland passes along some income figures via Aguanomics (re posted).  (Dan here…There are more American billionaires and millionaires, so not to worry) : Cornelia and I were discussing household income and living standards, and I mentioned that median wages in the US were around $35,000.* She was shocked, saying that they were much higher […]

Another Look at Wealth and Consumption – Pt 2

Correlations and Slopes Over Time In Part 1, we looked at the ratio of consumption spending to net worth, and how it changed over time.  This time we’ll look at the correlation between net worth and consumption. Here is the big picture: personal consumption expenditures (FRED Series PCE) plotted against Net Worth (FRED series TNWBSHNO) […]