Soft Landing or Hard?
Today’s gloomy home sales news is adding to the concern about recession. A couple of prominent homebuilders have been quoted as saying that this housing downturn has been harsh. One said harsher than in his …
Notes on the State of Business
Walking through a trade show at a meeting where I was speaking, I found a couple of interesting business people. I visited with the folks from Advanced Safety Wheel and Hub, which is an interesting …
Will Housing Pull Us Into Recession?
Bloomberg News has a great interview with Robert Shiller. Shiller is probably in as good a position as anyone to assess the impact of the real estate market on consumer psychology. He’s a Yale professor …
Business Planning for Recession
The last Businomics newsletter had a checklist for business planning for recession. Here it is: Assess your vulnerability to recession Sketch out contingency plans Develop an early warning system Build flexibility into the business to …
Housing is Really Dropping Now
What’s that Tom Petty song, Free Falling? That’s the way housing looks right now. The survey of home builders attitudes looks the same: These data confirm yesterday’s news that sales of existing homes were declining, …
Producer Prices Not So Benign
The headlines are positive. The Wall Street Journal says "Core Wholesale Prices Decline, Suggesting Inflation Is Easing." The year-over-year charts seem to confirm this: However, headline PPI features the "finished goods" category. Look this month …
Capitalism and the Poor
Interesting pre-review over at Crooked Timber (thanks to Mark Thoma at Economist’s View for the tip): The best recent books about capitalism and the circumstances in which it helps poorer people escape their poverty are …
New Newsletter Available
The latest issue of the Businomics (TM) Newsletter is available here. Unusual item this month: Business Planning for Recession checklist. I’m not forecasting a recession, but the risk of one beginning in the next 12-18 …
The Fed is Done
The Fed announced today that it would leave the Fed Funds rate steady. This is it. No more rate hikes this cycle. Short-term rates will be level for months. The next move is more likely …
More on Great Speaking
After my recent post about CEOs as speakers, I came across a description of a great speech in Guy Kawasaki’s blog (which is very good). Kawasaki is a VC, a former Apple Fellow, and a …
Employment Weak; Forecast Weaker
Employment growth was weak again, and the unemployment rate ticked up. I focus mostly on the growth of net new jobs, using a three-month average to balance out the ups and downs: The rate at …
CEOs as Speakers
For those executives who have to make speeches (which is all of you), take a look at "The Five Biggest Mistakes CEO’s Make in Speaking," on Bert Decker’s communications blog. I might quarrel a tad …