Month: November 2018
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Fake News from the CBO? Some Very Dicey Numbers in the New Income Inequality Report
It didn’t take long to realize that something was very wrong. The Congressional Budget Office just released its new report on The Distribution of Household Income, updated to cover 1979–2015. One thing in particular looked very dicey right off (source xlsx): Household Capital Gains (per household, average) 2007: $8,800 2008: $4,400 2009: $2,200 Wait a…
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The Real (Real) Wealth Effect: Do Wealth Changes Change Spending and Cause Recessions?
My gentle readers who have followed me over time will have seen this graph and statement far too many times by now: Since 1970 in the U.S., (almost) every time you saw a year-over-year decline in real household assets or net worth, you were either just into or about to be into a recession.* It’s…