by Pierre. G. Villere It has been interesting to watch how we have changed as a society over the course of my lifetime, and I marvel at how the standard of living for America’s middle class has grown over my almost 70 years, in what I call a history of “affluence expansion.”
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The Quest for Full Employment
By Pierre G. Villere The economic metrics of 2020 are certainly one for the history books and will be studied and dissected at business schools for generations to come. It’s simple: we were a powerful economic engine globally that was hitting on all eight cylinders, and the sudden shutdown of society as a result of the pandemic in mid-March hurtled…
Read MoreHow Population Growth Drives the Construction Economy
by: Pierre G. Villere I have long espoused that consumer sentiment is the most important driver in our economy. When sentiment is in the doldrums, the economy slows, and in contrast, when sentiment is buoyed by the average consumer feeling good about their jobs and their future, the economy expands.
Read MoreThe Promise of 2021
by: Pierre G. Villere The Christmas holidays are behind us, and we rang in the New Year, leaving 2020 behind.
Read MoreAn Election Surprise: The View of an Investor
By Pierre G. Villere Let me tell you about the profile of our client base, a cohort that can easily be described as a jeans-and-boots guy who drive a dusty pickup truck and has a copy of this publication on his dashboard.
Read MoreTax Law Changes and the Presidential Election
By Pierre G Villere By the time you read this, we will be days away from electing our next president. And believe me, I learned in the 2016 election results that pollsters are missing their election calls more and more these days, as voters become harder to predict, and voter turnout is impossible to gauge.
Read MoreThe Mixed News of Autumn
by: Pierre G. Villere As we finish the third quarter of 2020, a year for the history books, I continue to puzzle over the dichotomy in the current American economy. In a career approaching five decades, all of it spent in the financial and deal world, I can’t figure out how so much prosperity and pain are co-existing side-by-side.
Read MoreA Look Back at Our Interstate Highway System
Next year, the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System that crisscrosses our nation turns 65, and I recently learned a great deal about its history and how this remarkable system came to be, and what a major catalyst it became for the post-war aggregates industry.
Read MoreA Change in the Future of Urban America
I have written in the recent past about what the COVID-19 pandemic has left permanently etched in our lives and culture, and as the scourge drags on through these summer months, it is starting to extend its cultural tentacles, reaching other areas of our lives and undoubtedly changing them forever. Two of the greatest truisms that have come out of…
Read MoreThe Longer This Goes On, The More It Will Hurt
By: Pierre G. Villere Last month, I began this column by saying that I was speechless and in a state of shock. I still am.
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