One of the ways I am trying to control my screen-induced ADD is by making myself sit down and read more. It has been surprisingly difficult, as I have apparently largely lost my ability to sit down and concentrate on a book for a period of time. Now that I think of it, this is something that may have been due more to my small son than to screens. In any event, now that he is old enough that we can sit and read together, I am making the effort to relearn concentration.

The other day, I got a question about my recent webcast on the economy and markets (something I do quarterly for clients). The questioner pointed out that I sounded pretty optimistic and wondered how that squared with my concerns about next year and my belief that 2017 looks quite a bit like 1999. A fair question. But what’s the answer?

Today I’m going to discuss one of the major concerns out there: wage growth. Specifically, is what we’re seeing in terms of wage growth real or imaginary?

This week is an important one for earnings season, with a large number of S&P 500 companies due to announce their results for the second quarter. Given all the political turmoil in DC, should we expect company earnings to follow suit? Or have we already seen all the bad news?

Last week was all about housing, and the news was mixed. Although industry sentiment showed a surprising drop, actual activity came in stronger than expected. Overall, the data probably shades to the good side, but housing bears watching going forward.

It’s a beautiful Friday in the middle of summer. I’ve spent the week examining investments and worrying over the future. Instead of more of the same, I thought we could take some time to think about how truly blessed we are right now.

There’s an important—and potentially very disruptive—issue that has been largely ignored during coverage of the health care debate. The U.S. government hit its borrowing limit on March 16, 2017. Yes, that’s right—the U.S. borrowed as much as it legally can four months ago. Since then, the Treasury has been using the usual “extraordinary measures” to fund the government, including “borrowing” from government pension funds, diverting various funds tasked to other purposes, and looking for spare change in the laundry and the washer to pay the bills.

Valuations continue to reach new highs, and the market looks very expensive—by some measures, the third highest of all time after 1929 and 1999. Meanwhile, the economy is showing signs of slowing. I have made my own views about what might come next pretty clear, but it’s worth taking the counterarguments—that current stock prices are reasonable, not a cause for concern—seriously as well. I say this all the more because analysts I respect are increasingly positing that it is different this time. So let’s see if we can make a case for that.

The big news today is the collapse of the Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. With two more Republican senators declaring themselves unwilling to even vote to have the full Senate debate the bill, it appears that Obamacare will live on, at least for a while.

After a week of good news, last week’s economic data returned to the soft side. Inflation continues to run below Federal Reserve targets, and retail sales disappointed. Despite that, however, industrial production did well, suggesting that the economy as a whole may not be weakening, even if parts of it are. The Fed, in particular, appears to remain optimistic about growth.