Econintersect LLC

Residential building permits were soft in December 2014, but not as bad as last month. Construction completions continue to outnumber permits (showing that the future likely will be worse than today)....

The American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) trucking index was unchanged following an increase of 3.5% in November. From ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello: Economic data was mixed in December, with...

Have you seen the label "Made in USA"? Supposedly this means the product is "all or virtually all" made in the United States. I have little faith in labels such as this - the USA supply chain has gone...

I have spent the majority of my life outside the USA. My view of the world is very different than most all people both in and outside the USA. One thing I have learned - that the perceptions or...

Life as an investor has been very different since the Great Recession - and I did not anticipate the large drop in oil prices this year. Oil price decline will have so many knock-on effects (good and...

A post by the Pew Research Center based on the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances stated that minorities were falling further behind whites in net worth:"the median net worth of white...

Last week I penned that the BLS Jobs Situation Was Strong in November 2014 for the Establishment Portion But the Household Portion Shows Almost No Jobs Growth. The establishment portion showed job...

There is a ying and yang in trade. Major exporting countries are generally major importing countries. Most analysis centers on exports - and therefore misses the big picture in our globalized trade...

There was a pigs breakfast of mostly positive headlines after the October existing homes sales data was released.  My post had a positive spin October 2014 Existing Home Sales Had the Best...

There is an obvious relationship between supply and demand. In the rental housing market, demand is eroding supply at a rapid rate according to recent data - likely due to changing demographics and...

Last week when the relatively soft consumer credit data was released by the Fed, I recalled a rather humorous post in Forbes Credit Gets You a TV, Not Economic Growth which concluded...

My analysis of personal income and expenditures last week was mixed depending on whether you were looking in the short term or the long term. In the short term, consumer spending is definitely...

The Federal Reserve took extraordinary steps to save the economy from slipping into a depression in 2007. There is little argument the economy was close to a financial cascade which was mitigated by...

The markets appear to be in turmoil. Historically markets have proven to be forward looking, and it is hard to imagine this is true when looking at seemingly illogical movements (at times good is bad...

This past week Nobel Laureate Professor Paul Krugman OpEd: Even if Republicans take the Senate this year, gaining control of both houses of Congress, they won’t gain much in conventional terms:...

This past week I found a post worth reading from the Peterson Institute for International Economics is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution devoted to the study of international...