As I have written many times in the past, we pay close attention to both the Conference Board’s monthly measure of consumer confidence, as well as a similar measure from the University of Michigan which they characterize as consumer sentiment. Both descriptions are really interchangeable, as they measure how consumers feel about the times, both politically and economically. We publish…
Read MoreThe Covid-19 pandemic was one of the most disruptive events of the last 100-plus years, on the level of two world wars, although it did not last as long. But like the world wars of the past century, when women were enlisted to work in factories in all manner of jobs previously held by men so the men could go…
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The day before this column was due, I suffered a serious hand injury which made it impossible to write on a keyboard. I gave up on writing with dictation software years ago, as it is the connection with the keyboard that allows me to do my best work. With my editor’s permission, I dusted off an educational column I wrote…
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As I travel around the country visiting with clients and making industry presentations, I hear the same from almost every producer about the challenges in their businesses: not enough drivers, fuel costs, and materials cost rising faster than they can pass them on among the most frequent. But there is another shoe about to drop that may impact producers, both…
Read MoreLast month, I focused on the general housing inventory issue, which has gone from serious to critical in many markets. I opined that we won’t see any relief from these inventory challenges until interest rates start to fall, but there is more that comes into play beyond interest rates that will steady the housing market; another factor is simply builder…
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by Pierre G. Villere With the rifle-shot increase in interest rates over the last 18 months, catapulting from near zero for certain commercial credits to well over 6.5 percent for home mortgages, we are experiencing something we have not seen in decades: homeowners are sitting on their hands and staying put in their homes, corralled by 30-year fixed mortgage rates…
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by Pierre G. Villere I love to fish. My wife and I are avid saltwater fishermen here in the waters of South Louisiana, and we spend our summers catching all manner of saltwater species, feeding ourselves and our employees, friends, and neighbors with the freshest of just-caught seafood. What has changed dramatically for me over the last 20 years is…
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Everyone has seen the iconic motion picture It’s a Wonderful Life starring Jimmy Stewart (“George Bailey”) and Donna Reed (“Mary”), larger-than-life Hollywood stars from a couple of generations ago. The movie centers around the doom surrounding the possible failure of George’s Building and Loan when Uncle Billy loses an $8,000 deposit, and the bank examiners are called in to investigate.…
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A couple of issues ago, I wrote about how we are willing ourselves into a recession even as the economic indicators point in a different direction. In recent months, we have studied a large variety of economic indicators as we prepared to launch our AVP Pulse Index in cooperation with our sister publication, Rock Products. Like so many periods in…
Read MoreWe all thought putting masks on for a few weeks would be a temporary blip, and that the scourge of Covid-19 would simply go away. Well, as we all know, it cut much deeper into the very fabric of our economy, affecting us in so many ways. First, PPP money and personal stimulus initiatives from the U.S. government fueled inflation…
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