Unemployment at 3.7%. close to a 50 year low. Last time it was like this was 1970!

what is interesting that i did not know, was that unemployment remained range bound at this level from 1965 to 1970. fun facts!

So you are saying the strong economy will promise us another term for Trump?

Yet wages haven’t grown in how long?..my couch is a pretty comfy spot until firms want to start paying up.

^While wage growth is below the historical average of 6.22% (from 1960-2018 {so you have to account for the massive inflationary period in the late '70s}), wages are rising at a clip of about 4.80%. That’s not too shabby.

And, in my experience, firms do pay up…if they want you.

In the region our portfolio companies operate, there is definitely wage pressure.

And, to be far to the ripple guy, wages are coming down in most areas of financial services. Overall wage growth is pretty good. In finance, not so much.

Whoa wait a second, the touted wage growth of 2.8 percent in the past year and a half is flat when taking in account for inflation. Not sure what time period you are looking at to suggest “real wages” have grown at 4.8 percent…

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

Household median income. Wages have gone nowhere. This is known!

https://www.google.com/amp/www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/%3famp=1

Enjoy!

The question I have is why? Is it because labor truly isn’t scarce? Are the people at the top keeping more in their pockets causing a disproportion for the minions beneath them? Many theories are out there but what is the truth?..Perhaps the labor market isn’t as tight as the BLS and Trump want us to think it is…

Imo, globalization brings wages down, people in developed countries are overpaid and shit is being outsourced in the developing countries. You also see Corporate margins higher and have remained elevated. Productivity per worker has increased though, so perhaps innovation has also made people more useless! Ai baby give me my ubi!!

Pre tax profits are also at their highest ever. That being said, where is the disconnect? I’d like to see a chart on executive compensation and how that’s grown adjusted for inflation…if that too is flat then sure, automation might be a plausible explanation.

Can’t remember if I read it on this forum somewhere but recently someone said, “Be so good at your job and streamlining it to the point where you become dispensable”. Eh, really? not so sure I’m down with that.

Oh well look-ey here…

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/22/heres-how-much-ceo-pay-has-increased-compared-to-yours-over-the-years.html

Give it a bit more time. Stock market might have been kicking a** since 09, but the economic theme was “still humming at half speed”.

First the economy had to get solid. Then after that you need a few years to wait for everyone to get the benefit from it. And then thats when you’ll see a real change in pace. An actual boom like in the good old days.

Housing prices will be a new talking point if the seasonal downtrend we are in persists — we have had many trends like this one before, and they are only seasonal. This one is a little unusual due to the low volatility in the trend. Check existing home sales. The problem is that rates will shock the housing market; I hope the Fed slow down their projections.

If inflation doesn’t start to run away and real GDP projections fail to meet reality then I think the Fed will for sure back off. LTVs across the board for the US are still no where near where they were right before the housing crash so I think we would need to see quite the drop in values across the board since people are shying away now from taking out new mortgage debt. As always, we will see…

If you look at median home value to median income, things are looking very similar to 2006ish. Some markets more than others. Grantham has covered this in the past year or two https://www.businessinsider.com/a-new-housing-bubble-2016-5?r=UK&IR=T

Right. But the inflation numbers are a lie. This is known! Which makes it decades of declining real median income. See social unrest, people react to their lived experience, not the made up spreadsheet figures.

Have you not been paying attention? Modern corporatism launched in 1970s, everything traces back to that. It’s a wealth concentration machine.

Will never happen. The next collapse will come before the average person ever gets theirs.

yo PA do is it time to add to ASHR or wait?

burrrrrrrrrrrn!

house prices are undervalued in most US cities relative to interest rates. it is not alarming at all that home prices are 1-2 standard deviations from the mean when mortgage rates are half the historical average and institutions are pouring billions into residential property. the only way you can say house prices are overvalued is if you use a 8-10% long-term mortgage rate assumption. even places like toronto and sydney don’t look incredibly overvalued when taking interest rates into consideration. programs to reign in home ownership at the household level (as has occurred in Canada and Australia) will only fuel institutional ownership and in turn boost overall market stability while increasing income inequality further.