wages

Here's an interesting statistic from the OCRegister in California. What are the twenty wealthiest cities in the United States? Pleasanton, CA tops the list with a median household income of $113,345. See the chart below for the other 19. I…

I've been thinking a lot about unrealized gains and their effect on the global economy. if you remember, I wrote a few weeks ago about a new debit card that lets people tap the money from their 401(k) plan. I think these cards are a bad…

I just picked up on a MarketWatch article about 401(k) debit cards through Tim Iacono's blog. It marks a pretty astounding trend in financial innovation.Debit cards are straightforward. You use them for purchases and money is deducted from…

You've probably heard the adage that the American consumer just won't quit. And this last month's retail sales numbers seems to follow that saying. However, if you look beneath the surface, American consumers are cutting back indeed.…

As you know, the CPI registered a whopping 5% yesterday. Year-on-year inflation hasn't been this high since the Gulf War. So much for the 'Great Moderation.' But the increase in inflation begs another question: why are interest rates so…

Last month, in a post called 'Chart of the day: real hourly earnings' I said that U.S. real wage rates were lower today than they were a generation ago on the eve of the first oil hock. hat's pretty poor. Today 'UK Bubble' highlights the…

We knew that didn't we? Well, in response to a questionnaire by Nationwide, the building society, consumers basically said savings is not important and that they don't save as a result. I'm willing to bet UK consumers will change their…

From all accounts, it looks like Australia is set for a wicked slowdown. Four global industrial economies have been protected by commodity prices. They are Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia. This Goldilocks scenario looks…

The well-deserved euphoria over the European Championship in football has brought welcome relief to Spanish consumers, weighed down by a slow economy. However, global economies have not decoupled from the U.S. slowdown. European economies…

The news that income and spending in the U.S. economy has been resilient must be cheered as good (see news release here). It may result in our seeing a W-shaped recession as opposed to a U- or L-shaped one. The U.S. consumer is much more…