Bill Cheney joins the show today with Jason Hartman to talk about economics. Bill Cheney has been a chief economist for John Hancock for the past 27 years and shares a bit of his expertise on what he thinks about the GDP, CPI, and hedonic adjustments. You can find more information about what he does over at www.johnhancock.com/.

Key Takeaways:

2:15 – It's harder to calculate who's really unemployed as more and more people take on solo-gigs.

9:40 – People are getting better and are feeling less worried. Slowly but surely, there are less things people are concerned about.

13:50 – Is the stock market overvalued? It doesn't look that far out of line if corporate profits keep raising, but if they fall, then yes they would be.

15:45 – The economy is expanding. We have a healing economy, but not a healthy economy yet.

20:00 – Are people able to afford more stuff? The answer is yes, which is why inflation is being adjusted accordingly.

24:20 – The point of the CPI is to measure how much better our lives really are.