As we mull over the prospect of a recession, which I am still convinced will not happen, it is significant to note there are some financial forces at play over the next several years that will have a huge, and positive, impact on our economy. As I have said in prior columns and to state and national association presentations for…
Read MoreCategory: The Strategist
Housing Affordability is a Big Challenge
Last month, I wrote about how population growth is one of the biggest drivers of the entire housing market, including new and existing homes. Why? Because population growth helps drive housing formations. The majority of household formations occur when a group of young Millennials or Gen-Zers leave their parents’ basements and decide to room together, usually in connection with a…
Read MoreHousing Sentiment Drops, But What About the Growing Population?
For decades now, I have written columns and made industry presentations around the country that talk about the one, sure-fire driver of construction in America: population growth. Yes, the long, historical graph line has a sawtooth to it, but generally speaking, it is the population growth in our country that has driven construction growth, as we build homes to house…
Read MoreA Peek Behind the Employment Curtain
Last month, I wrote about the stabilizing inventory issue across all goods, the unclogging of supply chains and the general normalization to pre-pandemic times. This is a welcome change for consumers that points to the supply chain recovery being firmly in place, with COVID receding into the rearview mirror. But given the headlines and sound bites we are surrounded with…
Read MoreShortages Start to Ease
We have all suffered through the shortages and supply chain disruptions the pandemic thrust upon the global economy and threw manufacturing and retail inventories into a tizzy. But we are now witnessing the easing of shortages as ports become unclogged, factory workers return to their production jobs, and trucking and rail is stabilizing. For the aggregates industry, the shortages were…
Read MoreA Breakthrough That Will Change The Next Generation
As we begin 2023 and I mark the 50th year of my career, I have been reflecting on a lifetime I have lived witnessing dramatic innovation, and social and political change, as we all live in a very different world than I did as a young boy growing up in the Deep South of the 1950s. We are a better…
Read MoreMixed News Continues to Confuse Economic Outlook
All manner of economic indicators once again have us puzzled as to what direction the economy is headed and far too many continue to raise doubts that we are headed for a recession. Yes, there are some headlines regarding layoffs in the tech industry that appears to be a re-balancing of employment numbers that have just reflected unbridled growth at…
Read MoreThe Cooling Distribution Center Market
A couple of months ago, I wrote about the cooling housing market, observing that just as in every prior rising interest rate environment, housing sales have fallen, and new home starts are contracting. This has been true at least 10 times throughout my 50-year career, especially during the Paul Volker and Alan Greenspan stewardships of the Federal Reserve, when both…
Read MoreA Look at the Strong Dollar
One of the economic bright spots that is being masked against the backdrop of the front-and-center economic news – inflation – and all the other looming issues like the threat of recession, is the silver lining of the strong U.S. dollar. While good for our economy and our individual pocketbooks, it has a profound effect on the global economy, our…
Read MoreHow The Housing Slowdown Affects GDP
Look, there is no sugar-coating this, the housing market is really slowing down because of the action the Fed is taking to tame inflation. Interest rates are on the rise, and that has served to tamp down a tremendously overheated housing market that was starting to look eerily similar to the tulip mania craze of the 1600s in Holland, when…
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