The economic world is full of odd connections these days. A case in point is the tie-in between airline travel and the price of lumber.
How can visiting Aunt Pat in Topeka have anything to do with needing a loan to purchase a two-by-four?
Graph 1 conveys very good news. U.S. airline passenger traffic, as measured by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint numbers, is solidly on the rebound.
Over the latest 14 days ending June 1st, the number of people taking to the air has been 70% of what it was during the same time frame in 2019. While that still leaves considerable room for improvement, consider that for the same 14 days last year, the comparison with 2019 yielded a percentage level of just 12%.