Tuesday afternoon links

1. Chart of the Day I (above). The Census Bureau reported this morning that the US homeownership rate fell to 48-year low of 63.4% in Q2, the lowest level since Q1 1967. Thanks to a political obsession with homeownership, fueled by lower credit standards that made housing artificially more affordable, the homeownership rate increased from about 64% in the early 1990s to 69.2% in 2004. The artificial increase in homeownerhsip fueled an artificial home price bubble, which eventually crashed, and contributed to the homeownership rate falling to the lowest level in almost half a century. The political push for artificially increasing homeownership to an unsustainable level could qualify as one the worst public policy failures in at least a generation, maybe longer?

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2. Chart of the Day II (above). Americans seem to have gotten their driving mojo back, as the traffic volume increased in May to an all-time high of 3.08 trillion miles (12-month moving average). Also, the number of miles driven in May — at 262 billion — established a new all-time record for traffic volume in a single month, beating the previous record of 261 billion miles in April, which beat the previous record of 259 billion in March. Lower gas prices have likely been a contributing factor, along with gradually improving economic conditions in the US.

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3. Chart of the Day III (above). With Amazon reporting a rare profitable quarter last week, its stock price vaulted to a record high at the same time that Walmart’s shares traded close to two-year lows. Result?  The market capitalization of the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, founded in 1962, has been surpassed by upstart Amazon, founded in 1994. Source: BMO Wealth Management.

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4. Interesting Fact of the Day: YouTube Now Gets Over 400 Hours Of Content Uploaded Every Minute, which comes out to 24,000 days’ worth of content uploaded to YouTube every minute and 65.7 years’ worth of content uploaded every day.

5. Graphic of the Day (above). Trigger Warning: Those easily offended could be offended by the message above. On Twitter, somebody suggested that this should follow the comma, “so others’ behavior must be controlled accordingly.”

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6. Quotation of the Day (above), from Murray Rothbard on the minimum wage.

7. Markets in Everything I: A Pennsylvania couple has come up with a solution to soaring U.S. egg prices: Rental chickens.

8. Markets in Everything II: Online eye exams using your smartphone, eyeglass or contact prescriptions filled in 24 hours.

9. Mock-Worthy Hypocrisy: L.A. unions still seek exemption from minimum wage law they demanded.

10. Video of the Day (below): Socialism takes its toll on Venezuela, where supermarket shelves are now completely empty.

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