If I had a hammer...

We live in a society that may be termed "the cult of the new." If something is new, it is inherently better than something that is even just one year old. This ideology has been increasing over the past 50 years, driven meticulously and inexorably by market conditions that emphasized things that really are of little value. From automobiles (I understand in the 50s, cars were not made to last much longer than three or four years) to shoes to homes, everyone wants the next best, biggest thing. It has a telling effect on our society, as well as a detrimental effect on our environment.

So when I read this report this morning, growing out of the Census' bevy of information regarding economic indicators, I was actually encouraged by the news.

http://www.census.gov/briefrm/esbr/www/esbr020.html

Housing starts are an important indicator for the economy overall. Going back to 1968, we can see how when the economy has been more robust, housing starts followed along, and when the economy was not doing so well, housing starts declined.

This graphic, which I created using info from http://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/historical_data/ shows this relationship. But the real take away from all this (in my mind) is the following: since 1968 - when this particular data series started - there have been almost 65 million houses completed. Assuming an occupancy rate of 3 people per house, that means that 195 million people have had a new home in the past 40 years... That may not seem like a lot, but that's 1/2 of America. And since a home is typically built to last 30-40 years, it's a good bet these places are still on the market...

So as an economic indicator, I agree that this is probably a good one. But I would also venture to say that we are doing OK with the housing stock we have, and that we would do better to focus on savings and other sound financial policies than on building new homes...

But maybe that's just me...

(for more economic indicators, check this website: http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/briefroom/BriefRm#housing_starts)