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According to the National Association of Realtors, existing home sales suffered a minor setback in November 2019.  Completed transactions fell 1.7 percent. Suffering along with the monthly statistic, the year-over-year tally slowed to just 2.7 percent compared to 4.6 percent as recently as October. 

Income and outlays improved in November 2019 according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  The headline count for income gained 0.5 percent.  Similarly, disposable income (after-tax income) was also up 0.5 percent.  Further, inflation adjusted income gained 0.4 percent.  No matter how you dice it, Americans had more money to spend.  And their spending increased. 

Retail sales improved in November 2019 according to the Census Bureau.  This 0.2 percent gain to $528.0 billion is on the heels of October’s upwardly revised uptick of 0.4 percent.  Versus a year ago, sales are up $17.1 billion or 3.3 percent. There was plenty of good news in the release, but as you’ll see later, one dark lining to this silver cloud.

One hundred years ago our global economy was entering the Roaring Twenties.  After a rough start, it was a period marked by economic prosperity in the West.  America was leading the way in finance.  Metropolitan regions were experiencing extraordinary growth.  Even Judy Garland wondered how they were going to keep ret

Here we are on the penultimate Friday of 2019.  Around this time of year, it becomes easier to slip into daydreams, thinking about the bygone.  It was with this in mind that Atlas started to consider how much change has happened in the last 50 years.  What we found was eye-opening.

Productivity contracted in the third quarter of this year according to revised data from Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).  Their measure of output per labor hour fell 0.2 percent from July through September 2019 (originally down 0.3 percent).

America’s trade deficit shrank in October 2019 according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  The shortfall improved to $47.2 billion from the revised $51.1 billion (originally $52.5 billion) chasm in September.  While on the surface this indicator looked better, the cause of the improvement is not constructive as both sides of the trade ledger declined in the period.