Category Archives: Economics

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, May 25, 2020: 

Green shoots are appearing as the economy is starting to rebound from the COVID-19 shutdown.

On Saturday President Trump’s economic advisor Kevin Hassett told CNN, “It looks like the economy is picking up at a very rapid rate. In which case we could potentially move on to other things that the president has mentioned, like the payroll tax cut and potentially even a capital-gains holiday.”

That would provide additional fertilizer to an economy that hasn’t seen much light or water for the last two months. But businesses are reopening and credit-card usage is rebounding. Airline travel as measured by TSA screenings has more than tripled since their nadir on April 14.

Truckstop.com, which monitors trucking activity, says its weekly index has improved for four straight weeks and available loads were up 27 percent last week.

Property showings in the real estate market are also up 27 percent as of Saturday, and the Mortgage Bankers Association is reporting a rebound in the number of new mortgage applications. Last week Delta Airlines announced that it is restoring some flights between key cities such as New York and Atlanta. The airline is also restoring daily flights to Canada, the Caribbean, Central and South America, Mexico, and Europe.

Last week President Trump signed an executive order instructing regulatory agencies in the Executive branch “to use any and all authority to waive, suspend and eliminate unnecessary regulations that impede economic recovery.”

Added Trump:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, May 19, 2020: 

The headline number from Cambridge University, released on Tuesday, was scary. In its “worst case scenario,” the Centre for Risk Studies projected that the COVID-19 shutdown will cost the world’s economy $82 trillion. $20 trillion of that would be borne by the United States.

But wait! That’s the worst-case scenario. And it’s over the next five years.

The “middle case,” which the economists at the Centre call their “consensus” expectation, is for global costs to be vastly lower. And its “best case” — “a scenario in which pent-up demand fuels a rapid economic recovery” — projects a global cost of just $3.3 trillion, or about two-thirds of one percent of total global economic output over the next five years.

Here’s the number to keep in mind:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, May 15, 2020:  

Three reports released on Friday give a glimmer of hope that the worst may be behind for the U.S. economy.

While the headline from MarketWatch shouted, “Retail Sales Crater 16.4% in April,” the details were far less concerning. Auto dealers reported that April sales of new vehicles were off 12 percent. Translation: Despite nearly complete shutdowns of all economic activity in many states, somehow consumers still bought new vehicles at a rate of 88 percent of normal.

Gas stations saw their sales drop by 29 percent, which meant that, somehow, even though traffic has fallen off dramatically in response to the COVID-19 edicts, they still managed to sell gas and fast food items at nearly 70 percent of normal.

Grocery stores are operating at 87 percent of normal; clothing stores reported sales at 22 percent of normal even though most malls are closed. Electronics stores are still operating at 40 percent of normal, while furniture stores reported sales at 40 percent of normal. Bars and restaurants, most of which are closed, still managed to report sales at 70 percent of normal.

Lest we be accused of seeking signs of light in a darkened room, consider the Empire State Manufacturing Survey,

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, May 6, 2020:  

According to national payroll processor ADP, the U.S. economy lost more than 20 million jobs last month. The expectation was job losses of 22 million, but the ADP only covers the first 12 days of April.

As Ahu Yildirmaz, co-head of ADP’s Research Institute, warned in Wednesday’s report, “Job losses of this scale are unprecedented. The total number of job losses for the month of April alone was more than double the total jobs lost during the Great Recession. Additionally, it is important to note that [our] report is based on the total number of payroll records for employees who were active on a company’s payroll through the 12th of the month.”

The pain was shared more or less equally across the economy. Businesses employing fewer than 50 people lost six million jobs, while those under 500 employees lost more than five million. Large employers (500 and above) lost nearly nine million.

The services industry suffered the most,

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, April 29, 2020:  

The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) published monthly by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) dropped 20 percent in March. Contract signings dropped 16 percent compared to a year ago.

Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, said “the housing market is temporarily grappling with the coronavirus-induced shutdown, which pulled down new listings and new contracts.” For the year he expects overall home sales to be down 14 percent compared to last year.

But home prices “are holding up well,” he said. “In fact, I project the national median home price to increase 1.3% for the year.”

How are realtors coping,

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, April 29, 2020:

Just three months ago, the international marketing research firm Euromonitor International (EI), headquartered in London, published its outlook on consumer behaviors for 2020. So much has changed since then that the firm has been forced to revise many of those outlooks.

Thanks to the coronavirus and the “sheltering-in-place” mandates that followed, some trends are being accelerated; others have been stalled; still others are being redirected.

For example, in its report released on December 31, 2019, EI said