M-2

April 4, 2024 M-2 consists of funds that businesses can use to pay their workers, pay the rent, and keep the lights on, or that consumer can use to pay their rent or mortgage, their car loan, or buy food.  Thus, it is a measure of liquidity in the economy. In March...

Mortgage Loans

April 4, 2024 Real estate loans have been growing steadily for a number of months.  Specifically, they rose at a 4.4% pace in February.  That means that they have risen 2.9% in the past year.  If home sales quicken this year, as expected, mortgage loans should also...

Consumer Loans

April 4, 2024 The economy has been chugging along at about a 2.5% pace.  Consumer loans growth in the past year has been climbing at a roughly comparable 2.9% pace.  Nothing too surprising with the extent of consumer borrowing from banks. Rather than borrowing from a...

Corporate Leverage

September 12, 2023 Economists like to keep an eye on the amount of leverage amongst corporations.  When corporations take on huge amounts of debt in relation to their net worth, any economic downturn will be much more severe than it would otherwise be as corporations...