Economics

The major economic concern this year has been inflation. The latest data suggest that prices have risen by 7.1 percent over the last year. This has hit consumers’ pockets hard and at this time of the year made Christmas more expensive but by how much? A whimsical take on the cost of Christmas is provided by PNC bank which calculated the cost of the presents in the 12 days of Christmas. A partridge in a pear tree is 25.8 percent more expensive due to the higher cost of fertilizer. Higher

Christmas vacation is a great time to download a movie or pop in a DVD (or, if you’re really behind the times, a VHS tape) – especially this year, as the weather makes staying inside seem prudent. It’s also often a good time for movie producers to lure people to the theaters. Christmas movies are big business, both at the box office when they’re released and later as they’re shown ad infinitum on cable channels. There are a number of lists online of the top-grossing Christmas movies, all with varying

In the 1960s, both the Charlie Brown and the Grinch TV specials forewarned about the growing commercialization of Christmas. Despite their warnings, Christmas has become big business in the United States. Here are just a few facts about the business side of Christmas. • Christmas tree farms sell 25-30 million real trees each year – in 2018, it was 32 million, accounting for about $6.1 billion in sales. The states producing the most Christmas trees are Oregon, North Carolina and Michigan, but there are Christmas tree farms in every state.

In my annual economic forecast presentation a couple of weeks ago, I looked forward to 2023, which I covered in this column last week. I also took a longer timeline through 2031 to see what our economy would look like using Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) occupational projections. There are 22 major occupational groups tracked by the BLS and the charts below show the changes in the top 12 major groups that account for 85 percent of jobs locally. There are several things of interest. First, the top 12 major

CSRA residents, like millions of Americans, enjoy the ease of online shopping. But that trend also brings out criminals trying to capitalize on that appeal by running scams and, surprisingly, the fastest growing victim group is teenagers. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Department (SLED) said the end of the year is especially rife with scams and fraud. According to Social Catfish, in the past five years, the number of teenage victims of scams has increased by 1,125 percent and in 2021 resulted in a loss of $101.4 million. Those over

Small businesses have an increasingly pessimistic outlook about the economy and where it’s heading, according to the Job Creators Network Foundation (JCNF)’s latest Small Business IQ poll. According to the poll, 72 percent rate the U.S. economy as either fair or poor, but among companies in the South, that percentage is 80 percent. Also, 55 percent say the direction of the economy is getting worse, with 64 percent in the South saying so. JCNF has been polling small businesses monthly since May 2021. In November, JCNF contacted 500 small businesses

Last week, I gave my annual economic forecast for 2023 at Augusta University. For those who were unable to attend, I discussed three indicators of recessions. First, the yield curve is indicating a national recession. Interest rates on long-term government securities are currently lower than on short-term securities. As shown in the graph below, the yield curve has inverted prior to each of the last four recessions. An inverted yield curve means that investors are expecting lower short-term rates as a policy response to recessionary pressures. Second, the availability of

I was first introduced to Brewdog’s Nanny State alcohol-free beer by my brother four years ago. Since then, I have enjoyed their Hellcat IPA, a collaboration with Iron Maiden lead singer, Bruce Dickinson. I recently tried their Lost Planet First beer, which they claim is the first carbon-negative beer. They take more carbon from the air than they emit by using wind turbines and a bio plant to power their brewery and by planting trees. They have invested 15 million pounds (about $18 million U.S. dollars) in more than 9,000

Several months ago, I received an alarming text message: $699 had been charged to my PayPal account for a Pixel 6 phone! It was alarming for several reasons: I had purchased a Pixel 6 phone earlier in the year, and I only use PayPal to receive payments and knew I only had about $3 in the account. The text provided a phone number to call, purportedly to PayPal, if I questioned the purchase. I called, but after several minutes of the person at the other insisting I go online to