An astute Lead Left reader sent us the following note regarding last week’s commentary: “Besides the beneficial economic impact of pent-up consumerism, the Biden stimulus package, and vaccine distributions, you should also mention the healthy state of household savings,” he wrote. “February’s data [just released] showed family net worth’s hit a record high of $130.2…

In February 1983 your correspondent bought his first house with a 13% 30-year fixed rate mortgage. Why fixed? Because the year before, the 30-year had soared to almost 18%. Higher interest rates were a fact of life. We stubbornly stuck to the fixed rate option in succeeding refis over the next two decades. Since the…