The New Economic Misery Index: Five Sectors that Show Financial Pain for Americans. Food Stamps, Bankruptcy, Credit Access, Employment, and Housing.
Talking with a few colleagues I was reminded about a misery index used in the 1970s to measure the real feel of the stagflation hitting the country. Today, we have a more insidious version of economic crisis because what is good for Wall Street is counter to what is good for the average American. There […]
Dow Jones Largest Fall Since April of 2009: Current Rally based on V-Shaped Recovery Hopes and Sustained Spending. Credit Card Mail Offers Fall from 2.1 billion in Q3 of 2006 to 391 million in Q3 of 2009.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 249 points on Friday was a significant turning point in this rally because it came on the back of a 200 point jump just the subsequent day. On Thursday the GDP numbers were released showing a strong 3.5 percent jump. Yet digging into the data, 1.6 percent of this […]
How 56.5 Million Households Live: $52,000 Median Household Income in 2009 Crushed by a Decade of Debt. A Decade of Lost Wages and Financial Debt Servitude.
The recent American Consumer Survey had some thought provoking data regarding the typical American household. Wages over the past decade have been stagnant. At least that is what is propagated in the common datasets but in reality, not only has income not grown it has actually declined. The U.S. dollar during this time has been […]
Commercial Real Estate Implosion: 67 Percent Fall in Multifamily Starts, Ghost Buildings, $3 Trillion in Debt, 41 Percent Drop in CRE, and Collapse in Rents.
Driving along the highway at night, it is an eerie sight to look at some of the vacant buildings. The lights are on but the floors are empty awaiting an audience that will never come. Can it be that commercial real estate, with over $3 trillion outstanding be in worse shape than residential housing? In […]