Submitted by Businomics Blog
Mark Perry over at Carpe Diem has an interesting post showing the distribution of mortgages:

Note that about one out of three homes has NO MORTGAGE AT ALL. Mark has a companion chart showing which categories have foreclosures. (Hint: the folks with no mortgages have no foreclosures.)
Now I have to share […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

Subject to any last minute changes, I’ll be a guest on CNBC’s “Kudlow and Company” tonight at 7 p.m. EST to discuss some of my recent blog postings on inflation.
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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

Real direct tourism spending increased at an annual rate of 1.6% in the third quarter of 2007, according to data released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

Another post on the theme “The good old days are now.” The standard of living for the average American just keeps getting better and better over time. One reason we don’t appreciate it, is that the improvements, though persistent and relentless, happen gradually year after year, so we end up taking it […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

Using mid-December exchange-rate data from FT.com, the chart above shows the one-year forward discount or premium for the US dollar vs. the Euro and British Pound in 2005, 2006, and 2007.
Note that two years ago, the USD was trading at a one-year forward discount vs. both the Euro (-2.0%) and the BP […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
There are a myriad of factors involved in the rising costs of health care, but the biggest factor in rising medical costs? The medical doctors themselves, says one physician……
Dr. Steve Cole, staff physician at Baylor University Medical Center, writing in today’s Dallas News.
(HT: NCPA)
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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

NY TIMES–The luxury brand Jaguar is poised to join Tata Motors, a widely diverse Indian auto company that makes tractor-trailers, full-size SUVs and the world’s cheapest car. A final signed deal, which is expected to be worth about $2 billion, will not be announced until early next year.
When Tata is done buying […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Even more predictable than the post-Thanksgiving appearance of shopping-mall Santas is the inability of pundits at this time of year to say or to write “commercialism” without prefixing to it the word “crass.”
I challenge this notion. Commerce is peaceful. It involves sellers working hard and taking risks to bring to market goods […]

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Submitted by Econbrowser
China, PPP, and Misalignment Estimates
Ever since Albert Keidel wrote in the Financial Times that China was poorer, in PPP terms, than had been reported in the World Bank statistics, I’ve been wondering what the implications are for the Cheung-Chinn-Fujii estimates of CNY misalignment.
In “The Limits of a Smaller, Poorer China,” Keidel wrote:

In a […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Exhibit A: See graph below (click to enlarge) of the Adjusted Monetary Base, from the St. Louis Federal Reserve, from 2002-2007. Notice the decline in growth from 10% to 2%, suggesting a deflationary trend in high-powered money.

Exhibit B: See graph below of the Adjusted Monetary Base vs. M1 Money Supply, from 2002-2007. […]

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Submitted by A Dash of Insight
“Don’t Fight the ECB” lacks the alliterative quality of the Marty Zweig formulation, but at this critical market juncture it may be even more important.
Background
The hot money traders, doing something to score at year’s end, have reacted vociferously against the Fed. Equity traders understand big rate cuts, and that […]

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