America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
The August NFIB Small Business Optimism report was released today, September 12, 2023. The headline of the Economic Trends report is “Prices Rising Slightly on Main Street as Inflation Remains a Top Business Problem.” The Index of Small Business Optimism decreased by .6 points to 91.3. Here is an excerpt that I find particularly notable …
For reference purposes, here is Total Household Net Worth from a long-term perspective (from 1945:Q4 through 2023:Q2). The last value (as of the September 8, 2023 update) is $154.281581 Trillion: (click on each chart to enlarge image) – Also of interest is the same metric presented on a “Percent Change from a Year Ago” basis, …
The following chart is from the CalculatedRisk post of September 8, 2023 titled “Fed’s Flow of Funds: Household Net Worth Increased $5.5 Trillion in Q2.” 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 …
My overall analysis indicates a continuing elevated and growing level of financial danger which contains many worldwide and U.S.-specific “stresses” of a very complex nature. I have written numerous posts on this site concerning both ongoing and recent “negative developments.” These developments, as well as other exceedingly problematical conditions, have presented a highly perilous economic environment …
Throughout this site there are many discussions of economic indicators. This post is the latest in a series of posts indicating facets of U.S. economic weakness or a notably low growth rate. The level and trend of economic growth is especially notable at this time. As seen in various sources, recession estimates have been at high levels. As seen …
For reference purposes, below are two charts of the VIX from year 2000 through the September 1, 2023 close, which had a value of 13.09. Here is the VIX Weekly chart, depicted on a LOG scale, with the 13- and 34-week moving averages, seen in the cyan and red lines, respectively: (click on chart to …
In the March 9, 2012 post (“Charts of Equities’ Performance Since March 9, 2009 And January 1, 1980“) I highlighted two charts for reference purposes. Below are those two charts, updated through the latest daily closing price. The first is a daily chart of the S&P500 (shown in green), as well as five prominent (AAPL, IBM, …
StockCharts.com maintains long-term historical charts of various major stock market indices, interest rates, currencies, commodities, and economic indicators. As a long-term reference, below are charts depicting various stock market indices for the dates shown. All charts are depicted on a monthly basis using a LOG scale. (click on charts to enlarge images)(charts courtesy of StockCharts.com) The …
In the November 13, 2013 post (“Not In Labor Force Statistic“) I featured editorial commentary from the Wall Street Journal, as well as an accompanying long-term chart, with regard to the number of people not working. Also, on February 9, 2015 I wrote another post titled “Unemployment And The ‘Not In Labor Force’ Statistic,” in …
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 …