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I am working on some technical support for my positions regarding housing in Grand Forks but I will take a moment to reiterate that position here. Nobody illustrated to my satisfaction that Grand Forks ever had a housing “crisis.” Could there be circumstances where the types of housing available did not meet the particular demands of the people in the market? Sure. Could it be that builders focused on certain types of building which meant others types did not see new construction? You bet. Does any of this mean the market outcome is bad? No!

Continue reading Housing in Grand Forks, or anywhere for that matter

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Anybody that knows me is aware of the importance I place on population metrics in the sphere of economics. We do not get demand without people. Supply does not just miraculously appear, people work and make goods and services. So it is not overstatement when I say there are fundamental ways that people matter for economic outcomes. Every so often though, we go into an odd place. I recently attended a presentation by a Chief Economist for a mutual fund company and he showed a graph qualitatively similar to the following,

Continue reading Population and markets

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The Census Bureau released the Advance Sales Report for Retail and Food Services today (available here).  While not stellar the nominal increase in sales, year-over-year, was three percent. The Conference Board also released their report today on Consumer Confidence, and it fell significantly (available here). This is why I posted that it matters more what people do than what they feel or say they will do in the future.

Continue reading As if on cue…

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