by Calculated Risk on 7/15/2014 09:28:00 PM

For enjoyment, some thoughts from Paul Krugman on Life Without Cars.

I've been thinking about "IT-mediated car services" combined with self-driving cars. I agree with Krugman's points, but what does this mean for real estate and housing? How about no home garages? (I dislike big ugly home garages at the front of homes - so 20th Century!). And no garages or parking lots at work or restaurants (wasted space). Sure - there will still be garages to park the self-driving cars at night, but they could be located in undesirable areas.  Fun to think about ...

Tuesday:
• At 7:00 AM ET, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

• At 8:30 AM, the Producer Price Index for June from the BLS. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in prices.

• At 9:15 AM, the Fed will release Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for June. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in Industrial Production, and for Capacity Utilization to increase to 79.2%.

• At 10:00 AM, the July NAHB homebuilder survey. The consensus is for a reading of 50, up from 49 in June. Any number above 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as good than poor.

• Also at 10:00 AM, Testimony by Fed Chair Janet Yellen, Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress, Before the House Financial Services Committee

• At 2:00 PM, the Federal Reserve Beige Book, an informal review by the Federal Reserve Banks of current economic conditions in their Districts.