Architecture Indexes Improve in October
CARPE DIEM
Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
About Me
- Name: Mark J. Perry
- Location: Washington, D.C., United States
Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. Perry holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University near Washington, D.C. In addition, he holds an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. In addition to a faculty appointment at the University of Michigan-Flint, Perry is also a visiting scholar at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
Previous Posts
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8 Comments:
improve yes, but it is still under 50 and therefore contracting.
this is born out in the housing starts number which is still scraping along the lows at 410k vs 1.8 million in 2007.
Not just housing, but commercial as well. I talk to a lot of architects in Atlanta and they all say the same thing: their business is in a deep depression.
The mix of consumption has changed over the past few years.
A worker earning $5,000 a month, for example, is still spending $4,500 a month.
Of course, he's not buying a new house, a new auto, clothing at 70% off, etc.
Yet, he's spending each month, perhaps at restaurants, on an iPhone, or on non-durable goods, etc.
Unemployed workers had to cut back, although they're maintaining autonomous consumption.
And many of the employed are working overtime, because firms are less likely to hire new workers.
The Fed needs to get aggressive--the PPI, CPI and unit labor costs are all going down.
What does it take to make Bernanke show some nerve?
National Retail Federation (NRF)
Retailers Will Hire Estimated 480,000 - 500,000 Seasonal Employees This Year.
NRF is projecting 2011 holiday sales to rise 2.8% from 2010.
If NRF's 2.8% estimate is correct, holiday sales this year would be $465.6 billion.
In 2010, holiday sales increased 5.2% to $452.9 billion, which was a significant improvement from the -0.4% decrease in 2009.
On average, holiday sales have increased 2.6% per year for the last 10 years.
Nov. 6, 2011
ShopperTrak predicts a 2.2 percent increase in sales from last year.
American Research Group Inc...found more than 35 percent planning to cut back on holiday spending because of rising food prices.
Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst for NPD Group Inc., said Halloween produced a lot of traffic at retail stores -- but much of it was browsing, not buying.
The Shop.org eHoliday survey indicates online sales will do better...with consumers planning to do 36 percent of their shopping online, compared to 32.7 percent in 2010.
"ShopperTrak predicts a 2.2 percent increase in sales from last year."
note that that is a decline in real terms of about 1.5% and one likely to widen as CPI is going back up in a big way in November.
Morganovich, perhaps, but Real Retail and Food Services Sales increased recently:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/RRSFS
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