Common Cents Blog
TGIF. I used to think the expression “Thank God it’s Friday” was a bit sophomoric. Is your job really that bad? Are your plans for the weekend really that good? Is that all you have to…
Here we go again, building walls of worry. To be sure, the news makes it pretty easy for us to do. Nothing seems to be hitting on all cylinders, does it? However, this past week took…
This morning I had a meeting at a coffee shop in Mountain Brook Village here in the Birmingham area. I have lived in this particular suburb for most of my life. As I was waiting, I…
This past week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its much anticipated inflation figures for January. No one was expecting prices to fall, as they did in December. Investors just hoped the data would be…
Last week I was in the Nashville area on business and was fortunate to have dinner with a close childhood friend. He is conversant on a variety of topics, even if he isn’t always correct. Obviously,…
This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its monthly report on the health of the US labor markets. It reported the US economy created an eye-popping 517,000 net, new payroll jobs during January. To…
A couple of decades ago, a movie called “The Shipping News” came out. It was an adaptation of a book by the same name by Annie Proulx. If you haven’t seen it yet, there is no…
This week, I made four public appearances. Ordinarily, I would say presentations; however, one was a webinar and another was a roundtable discussion. Regardless, I had ample ability to bloviate about the economy and have an…
During the Spanish Civil War, Francisco Franco was famous for supposedly having said he had four army columns approaching Madrid, as well a fifth that was ready to attack from inside. The implication was the Nationalists…
Here I was hoping 2023 would be less confusing and confounding than 2022. It seems I was wrong. You see, this morning the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released “The Employment Situation – December 2022.” While…