America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
In the last post (“Total Household Net Worth As A Percent Of GDP 4Q 2013“) I displayed a long-term chart depicting Total Household Net Worth as a percentage of GDP. For reference purposes, here is Total Household Net Worth from a long-term perspective (from 1949:Q4 to 2013:Q4). The last value (as of March 6, 2014) …
The following chart is from the CalculatedRisk blog post of March 6, 2014 titled “Fed’s Q4 Flow of Funds: Household Net Worth at Record High.” It depicts Total Household Net Worth as a Percent of GDP. The underlying data is from the Federal Reserve’s Z.1 report, “Financial Accounts of the United States“ : (click on chart to enlarge image) …
On March 4, 2014 Gallup released the poll results titled “Economic Confidence Unchanged in February.” The subtitle is “Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index remains at -16.” Notable excerpts include: Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index was -16 for the month of February, the same as in January. February marked the end of consecutive monthly increases in economic confidence after …
Doug Short had a blog post of February 28, 2014 (“Michigan Consumer Sentiment: A Modest Increase Despite Bad Weather“) in which he presents the latest Conference Board Consumer Confidence and Thomson/Reuters University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index charts. They are presented below: (click on charts to enlarge images) – – There are a few aspects of the …
Many people place emphasis on Durable Goods New Orders as a prominent economic indicator and/or leading economic indicator. For reference, below are charts depicting this measure. First, from the St. Louis Fed site (FRED), a chart through January, last updated on February 27, 2014. This value is 224,975 ($ Millions) : (click on charts to …
With regard to our current economic situation, my thoughts can best be described/summarized by the posts found under the 33 “Building Financial Danger” posts. My thoughts concerning our ongoing economic situation – with future implications – can be seen on the page titled “A Special Note On Our Economic Situation,” which has been found near …
In the August 9, 2011 post (“QE3 – Various Thoughts“) I posted a chart that depicted the movements of the S&P500, 10-Year Treasury Yield and the Fed Funds rate spanning the periods of various Federal Reserve interventions since 2007. For reference purposes, here is an updated chart from Doug Short’s blog post of February 21, …
I found various notable items in Walmart’s Q4 2014 management call transcript (pdf) dated February 20, 2014. (as well, there is Walmart’s press release of the Q4 and Full Year 2014 results) I view Walmart’s results and comments as particularly noteworthy given their retail prominence and focus on low prices. I have previously commented on their quarterly conference call comments; …
Pew Research Center recently published two documents that I found notable. The first is dated January 27, 2014 and is titled “Despite recovery, fewer Americans identify as middle class.” A couple of excerpts include: Despite a slowly recovering economy, the proportion of Americans who identify themselves as middle class has dropped sharply in recent years. …
I have written many blog posts concerning the worrisome trends in income and earnings. Along these lines, one of the measures showing disconcerting trends is that of hourly earnings. While the concept of hourly earnings can be defined and measured in a variety of ways, below are a few charts that I believe broadly illustrate problematic …