» Posted by Martin Weil on January 27, 2006

"If you want good manufacturing jobs, one thing you could do is graduate more engineers. We had more sports exercise majors graduate than electrical engineering graduates last year. If you want to be the massage capital of the world, you're well on your way."

Jeffrey Immelt, GE CEO, speaking last week to the Economic Club of Washington

Thanks to Daniel Gross for the link.

» Posted by Martin Weil on January 25, 2006

"Americans: world's worst savers"

This headline on a recent CNN Money article pretty much says it all. The article offers a small glimmer of hope as there are faint indicators that our long trend of declining savings rates may finally have begun to reverse.

Surprise to me

» Posted by Martin Weil on January 12, 2006

Each year, United Van Lines tracks US migration patterns - the number of people moving into and out of each of the lower 48 states. Here is a graph of their tabulated results for 2005.

Most surprising is California's indicated net outflow last year, the first recorded by United for the state since 1995, as well as Florida's lack of inflow.

Thanks to Calculated Risk for the pointer.

» Posted by Martin Weil on January 11, 2006

BusinessWeek has a good update on the housing market. According to the magazine's chief economist, Michael Mandel, residential real estate investment as a percentage of US GDP has now surpassed the tech bubble at its peak. This does not bode well, Mandel argues, for home prices.