Beginning in May 2010 and continuing for almost three years, aerospace employers in Washington State added to their payrolls at the rate of nearly 600 a month. Over eight months starting in April 2011, the pace of hiring was almost frantic, averaging about 900 a month, as Boeing scrambled to [continue reading . . . ]
The ports of Seattle and Tacoma are both spending heavily gearing up for shipping-container volumes vastly beyond anything they’ve handled to date. They both may be chasing pipe dreams that will prove costly to their taxpayers. Data from the Pacific Maritime Association shows that container “handle” at Tacoma peaked eight [continue reading . . . ]
I was a newspaperman before I became, in order, a newsletter editor-publisher, then a self-trained economist and professional speaker. I still love newspapers. And not just the on-line versions. I still savor dead trees. Four newspapers thud on to my front porch on weekdays, five on Saturdays, two on Sundays. [continue reading . . . ]
We have not seen this movie before. We do not know how it ends. Unwinding the Fed’s Quantitative Easing (QE) programs and central banks’ near-zero interest policies (N-ZIRP), now in Year 5, were never going to be easy. But these have to be done eventually. The repression of interest rates [continue reading . . . ]
Things on my mind as I prepare for the business/economy segment on KUOW‘s Weekday program at about 10:40 a.m. Pacific time May 29: 1. The Boeing Boom? So over. The headlines over the past several weeks about layoffs and other cutbacks at Boeing (excellent coverage in the Seattle Times by [continue reading . . . ]
For those of a certain age, the billboard remains etched in memory. It was April 1971. Boeing employment over the course of about three years had collapsed from more than 100,000 to fewer than 40,000 following cancellation of government funding for a supersonic transport and commercial orders for the then-shiny-new [continue reading . . . ]
A correspondent who heard me last week on KUOW‘s Weekday program asks if there is research on “a correlation between the wealth lost in a downturn and the length of following recovery.” I told him the book to read is This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly By Carmen [continue reading . . . ]
How anemic has been the recovery from the Great Recession? Here’s one way of looking at it. Until the Great Recession (December 2007-June 2009), the lengthiest recessions of the post-World War II era were 1973-1975 and 1981-1982, both at 16 months. The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau [continue reading . . . ]
A correspondent who heard my comments on Cyprus on KUOW’s Weekday program today asks: I am puzzled by some of your comments this morning. As I understand it, when a bank in the U.S. fails, the FDIC moves in and closes it. The accounts are protected by insurance up to [continue reading . . . ]
Do Malthusian nightmares about the population explosion keep you up nights? Relax. Chill. We Americans (numbering 315 million) are having too few babies. Middle-class fertility has fallen to about 1.6, far below the replacement rate of 2.1. That means fewer workers to support your Social Security benefits. And the problem [continue reading . . . ]
I wish it were otherwise, but no matter: If Washington State’s economy were a stock, I’d be tempted to go short*. I’m no expert. I know only what I read. My gut tells me that the longer the 787 remains grounded, the more likely Boeing will have to redesign the [continue reading . . . ]
My friend James McCusker, tongue planted firmly in cheek, suggests that rather than just one trillion-dollar platinum coin as a solution to our debt-deficit-fiscal mess, we mint one worth $50,000 for each of us. That’s roughly 315 million shiny tokens. Poof! Our debt problem goes away. How do you plan [continue reading . . . ]