RCD Chief Economist Bernard Markstein compared and contrasted good debt versus bad debt

Reed Construction Data Chief Economist Bernie Markstein analyzed the fiscal cliff dilemma.

Economic nuggets from the past two weeks’ news headlines and industry publications.

Economic nuggets from the past two weeks’ news headlines and industry publications.

RCD Chief Economist Bernard Markstein, Ph.D. responded to a comment from social media about his recent article Construction Spending Inches up in March”

RCD US Chief Economist, Bernie Markstein explained and analyzed the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) revision of their series for existing home sales back through 2007.

It's not quite time to do a victory dance for the housing market, but the December 20th report from the U.S. Census Bureau on October housing starts extends the recent string of good news on the residential construction front:

The long anticipated rebound in housing will have to wait awhile longer. July housing starts fell 1.5% from June to 604,000 units (seasonally adjusted at an annual rate).

But as is often the case in housing starts, it is worth digging into the numbers to better understand what is happening. The real hit was on single-family housing starts, which fell 4.9%, while multifamily starts were up 7.8%.

What does Standard & Poor’s downgrade of U.S. debt from AAA to AA+ mean for the U.S. construction industry?

First, let’s put the downgrade in perspective. S&P did not tell us anything that we (or the rest of the world) didn’t already know. The United States is running large deficits (roughly $1.3 trillion in FY 2010 and an estimated $1.4 trillion in FY 2011 — which is likely to run higher as the economy continues to struggle) and has accumulated roughly $14 trillion in debt, while the politicians prefer finger pointing to real solutions.