Tariffs and Inflation Kevin Quinn, Econospeak

 Jason Furman and Janet Yellen have both suggested that cutting Trump’s tariffs would be anti-inflationary. But most economists agree that the incidence of the tariffs is for the most part on US consumers, not foreign suppliers (pace the treasonous and ignorant former president, who crowed about all the revenues we were raising from China). So how is a tax cut anti-inflationary?  There is a supply-side effect, which is all to the good, but the demand-side effects may well wash that out. So get rid of the tariffs but reverse the Trump tax cuts, which Manchin favors, through reconciliation. Taxes remain the same, so we’ve neutralized the effects on demand;  and we still get the good supply side effects of

Weekly Indicators for June 13 – 17 at Seeking Alpha

 – by New Deal democrat

My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.

My paradigm is: first the long leading indicators turn. Then the short leading indicators turn. Then the coincident indicators turn. Finally the lagging indicators turn.

For months I have been documenting the downturn among the long leading indicators. In the past few weeks, that deterioration has been gradually spreading among the short leading indicators.

As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment as tho the state of the economy, and will bring me a small reward for my efforts as well

Tags: economic

by New Deal democrat

Weekly Indicators for June 6 – 10 and a comment on COVID

I’m still traveling, so light posting for a couple days more.

In fact, I neglected to post a link to my Weekly Indicators on Saturday. A bit tardy, here it is. Conditions across all time frames do not look so good, and with Friday’s poor inflation report, I expect the Fed to continue stomping on the brakes – especially since we know that the YoY change in rents and “owners’ equivalent rent,” which together make up about 1/3rd of all inflation, are likely to keep rising (since they lag house price indexes, which are still at or near their YoY high growth rates, by a year or more).

Meanwhile, there’s good news and bad news on the COVID front. For the last three

by New Deal democrat

Weekly Indicators for May 30 – June 3 at Seeking Alpha

My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.

The slow drip, drip, drip of decelerating or declining data is continuing, as among other things, the YoY increase in withholding tax payments from workers has declined significantly in the past month.

As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment in what is happening in the economy, and reward me a little bit for my efforts.

From the Boston Globe comes this opinion piece on part-of-what-is-wrong with the hospital system:

“Ask any bedside nurse what the worst part of the job is, and chances are they won’t even mention bodily fluids or patients’ insults. The answer I hear most often is the same as mine: “charting.”

Accurate, timely charting of nearly every patient interaction, assessment, and intervention is mandatory. Arguably, it’s the requirement that matters most to the hospital administration. I’m not being critical here — I get it. Insurance companies pay the bills. They demand documentation. It’s part of the job, and we do it, grudgingly.

I’ve learned most hospitals ignore these essential limits on nurse-to-patient ratios. Legally (except in California),

by New Deal democrat

Weekly Indicators for May 23 – 27 at Seeking Alpha

My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.

Few changes to the headlines, but lots of churning underneath.

People seem to have jumped the gun on recession, thinking one is either here or imminent. It’s not here, and it isn’t imminent. I wonder if people will get complacent later in the year, thinking we have dodged a bullet. That probably won’t be true either.

In any event, clicking over and reading will bring you right up to the moment on the long leading, short leading, and coincident readings on the economy, and bring me a little pocket change.

Tags: weekly economic indicators

Economic Policy Institute offers an explanation that our current inflation is different from previous recessions in the US in addition to what NDd and Barkley Rosser offer :

Since the trough of the COVID-19 recession in the second quarter of 2020, overall prices in the NFC sector have risen at an annualized rate of 6.1%—a pronounced acceleration over the 1.8% price growth that characterized the pre-pandemic business cycle of 2007–2019. Strikingly, over half of this increase (53.9%) can be attributed to fatter profit margins, with labor costs contributing less than 8% of this increase. This is not normal. From 1979 to 2019, profits only contributed about 11% to price growth and labor costs over 60%, as shown in Figure A below. Nonlabor inputs—a

by New Deal democrat

Weekly Indicators for May 9 – 13 at Seeking Alpha

My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.

One measure of how the Russia-Ukraine war has been “normalized” globally, is that industrial commodity prices have declined sharply – on the order of 25% – in the past two weeks, taking back their entire sharp increase at the start of hostilities.

Meanwhile, the Treasury yield curve has “normalized” somewhat more in the past several weeks. Despite that, the majority of financial indicators outside of the yield curve are decidedly negative.

As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment on the economy, and reward me just a little bit financial for the effort I make putting the news

Weekly Indicators for May 9 – 13 at Seeking Alpha

 – by New Deal democrat

My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.

One measure of how the Russia-Ukraine war has been “normalized” globally, is that industrial commodity prices have declined sharply – on the order of 25% – in the past two weeks, taking back their entire sharp increase at the start of hostilities.

Meanwhile, the Treasury yield curve has “normalized” somewhat more in the past several weeks. Despite that, the majority of financial indicators outside of the yield curve are decidedly negative.

As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment on the economy, and reward me just a little bit financial for the effort I make putting the news

by New Deal democrat

Weekly Indicators for May 2 – 6 at Seeking Alpha

My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.

Over the past few months, indicators across all timeframes have deteriorated. With increasing interest rates, and another Fed rate hike, that trend continued, and spread to credit conditions in a significant way.

As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment, and will bring me some lunch money.

Tags: weekly economic indicators

By New Deal democrat

Weekly Indicators for April 18 – 22 at Seeking Alpha

My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.

While I was writing about mortgage rates during the week, the yield curve did some re-tightening, enough to make a difference in the long term forecast.

As usual, clicking over and reading should help bring you up to the virtual minute as to the nowcast and forecast for the economy, and help me pay for some nice tapas the next time I dine out at a Spanish restaurant

Tags: weekly indicators

By Joseph Joyce

The IMF’s Proposed Policies on the Management of Capital Flows

The IMF’s views on the advantages and drawbacks of capital flows have substantially evolved over time. The Fund reversed its opposition to capital controls in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2007-09, when it adopted the “Institutional View on the Liberalization and Management of Capital Flows.” That framework included capital flows measures (CFMs) as one of the policy measures available to a government facing surges of capital inflows, i.e., large inflows that could destabilize an economy. The Fund has now moved further in the direction of using CFMs, proposing that they can be used in a preemptive manner to avoid future instability.

The IMF had