Existing Home Sales: Without Foreclosures, Prices Pop 10.1%
Source: Calculated Risk Existing Home Sales were released today. To back out the strong effect seasonality has on this data, we prefer using the NSA chart (above). Existing-home sales rose in April and remain above a year ago at a slightly better sales pace than April 2011, but they remains significantly lower than April...
If Information Is Power, What Is Lack Of Information?
I’m going to take the charitable (though probably mistaken) view and say that Representative Daniel Webster was not deliberately trying to turn out the lights on Americans’ access to critical data when he proposed an amendment to defund the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS). I tried (unsuccessfully) last year (here, here) to salvage the...
MIA: Bond Vigilantes
Following up on a previous matter, Karl Denninger posted what is supposed to pass for a rebuttal to my recent post on government spending. To my eyes, as Jay Bookman so aptly put it, it looks like “the octopus trick, squirting black ink to cloud your retreat.” True enough. Anyway, done with that discussion. Paul...
The Fiction To Reality Timeline
Click to see full graphic:
Source: ATT Savings
Sweet Spots: Startup Hubs Across the U.S.
Click to see full graphic: Source: Column 5
Rent Or Buy ?
Via Mortgage Refinance: Click to see full graphic: > Source: Mortgage Refinance
Electoral College Tossup States
Nice interactive electoral college analysis looking at the tossup states from the NYT. If you put the solid and leaning Democratic or Republican states into opposing bins, there are nine states where the election is likely to be decided. > click for interactive electoral scenarios
Banks vs Credit Unions
Click to see full graphic: Source: Daily Infographic
The Surprisingly Shrinking Government Footprint
My recent Hey, Big Spender piece (the third in a series, it turns out) drew a fair amount of hyper-partisan commentary. Most of it followed BR’s Comment Caveat almost to the letter. However, it was at another website that, after years of blogging, I was finally busted. Yes, I was called out on the “intentionally...
Wise Up to the Proper Flaws of Monthly NFP Data
The monthly jobs report is a flawed statistical series. Its just not flawed in the way you may think it is. Monthly Non Farm Payroll Data is about a marginal change in measures of short term job changes — it is a tiny change in employment numbers relative to an enormous base of the people...
Are Stocks Ahead of the Economy?
> Today, I want to bring a simple analysis to your attention. It is based upon the chart of GDP versus the total stock market valuation: Another measure bodes worse, however. That’s a comparison of the total value of U.S. shares with the yearly output of the U.S. economy (see chart). The stock market is...
