by New Deal democrat
The 2017 GOP tax scam may hurt the economy this spring
It turns out that part of the GOP tax scam of 2017 might hurt the economy this year. That’s because the total decline in the amount of tax refunds going to tax filers this looks like it is going to be enough to affect consumer spending significantly this spring.

This post is up at Seeking Alpha.

Special bonus: a few RW commenters there really don’t seem to like it!

By New Deal democrat
What does a “Recession Watch” mean?

On Wednesday I went on “Recession Watch” beginning Q4 of this year.

Yesterday I explained what that means in detail over at Seeking Alpha.

So, what happens after this?

If the weakness persists and spreads to the short leading indicators, the “watch” turns into a.warning.
If the weakness abates without spreading into the short leading indicators, the “watch” is lifted.

As always, I will be relentlessly data-driven.

By Robert Waldmann  (lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts)
The Empty Quarter, Greenwich and the Mason Dixon Line
I recall being surprised to learn that I was born, bred and then living South of the Mason Dixon line. I considered the border between North and South to be the Patomac river (honestly felt I was entering enemy territory when I entered Northern Virginia — this was very long ago). My dad explained it was the border between Pennsylvania (North) and Maryland (South). My 91 year old mother recently confessed that she had some doubts about moving South of the Mason Dixon line to live with my Dad. The border is now roughly where 270 shrinks into a normal sized highway. The line is arbitrary.I thought of it when I saw the very common figure showing

By New Deal democrat
Q4 Senior Loan Officer Survey says …
The Senior Loan Officer Survey is one of my list of long leading indicators. The Q4 report came out yesterday.
The news wasn’t good. This post is up at Seeking Alpha.
Meanwhile, since the dates for publication of neither housing permits nor Q4 GDP were announced last week, I am going to go ahead and put up a preliminary forecast for the second half of this year sometime this week.

by New Deal democrat
Weekly Indicators for January 28 – February 1 at Seeking Alpha
My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.There are continuing if small shifts in all of the long leading, short leading, and coincident timeframes.

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts)
Reagan’s Tax Cuts and the Volcker Recession
 Max Boot is a candidate member of the Rubin Gerson can’t be a conservative anymore, because I always agree with them club of Washington Post columnists. But he is a bit confused about US macroeconmic history and macroeconomics. He wrote”The deficit spending of the Reagan years was at least justified because it boosted the economy out of a deep recession “

As a matter of timing, this can’t be right. The Kemp Roth tax cut was enacted in 1981. Real GDP peaked in 1981q3 — the tax cut corresponds to the beginning of the recession not the end.

The part that Boot misses (because it has been unimportant for the past 10 years) is monetary policy. It is possible to

By Joseph Joyce
Global Firms, National Policies
Studies of international transactions often assume that national economies function as separate “islands” or “planets.” Each has its own markets and currency, and international trade and finance occurs when the residents of one economy exchange goods and services or financial assets with those of another. The balance of payments keeps track of the transactions. But in reality firms treat the differences across nations as opportunities to increase their profits, and their decisions on basing the location of their activities–or how they report the basing of the activities–reflect this.
Multinational companies are not new entities; they can be traced back to the European trading companies that colonized the

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts)
The Ethics of Clinical Trials

In a clinical trial the therapy is decided by a pseudo random number generator. How can this be ethical ? People are treated differently for no reason related to different interests different values and priorities or even different merit (assuming merit can differ).There is a utilitarian rational for clinical trials. Through such trials doctors learn, and that knowledge is useful to future patients. But this rationale is utterly rejected as ethically unacceptable, because it was used to justify depraved experiments.
I think the current discussion of the ethics of clinical trials is based on a mixture which is partly consequentialist and partly deontological, and that it is

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts)
“If Only Obama had Done the Things Obama Actually Did” J-chait

Jon Chait remains as enthusiastic about Barack Obama as I am, so it isn’t surprising that he wrote a blog post entitled “If Only Obama had Done the Things Obama Actually Did”. But the title does raise a question. Is Chait dumping on the very serious centrists (cough David Brooks couch) who argued that Obama should reach out to Republicans by proposing reasonable centrist policies which he had proposed (as Chait often does) or is Chait hippy punching (as Chait does when he isn’t Republipunching).The first two words in the post answer the question “Matt Stoller” OK here comes some hippy punching (I haven’t read past “Stoller”). In contrast,

[embedded content]Martin Luther King when asked about the Berlin Wall: This is my first vision of the Wall. “And do you find it depressing?” Yes, I certainly do. It symbolizes the divisions of mankind. “Have you ever seen anything as disastrous as this?” Not really. Suddenly there are the divisions that continue to exist but when these divisions are symbolized by an actual wall, it becomes very depressing.

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts)
Rare Yglesias Google Fail

(Most boring title after “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” but I couldn’t resist) Web savvy ultra wonk Matthew Yglesias wrote “There’s no polling on specific brackets or exactly who counts as rich that I can find,” Matty just google [income to be rich poll]. Jeez. Americans have varying ideas of how much money you need to earn each year to be considered “rich,” but most people say you need to bring in at least $1 million per year. Notice that the possibility that one is rich because of high wealth not high income is too weird to even mention. That’s rich.

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts)
A viral ad
This ad is clearly designed to go viral also I enjoyed it, so I want to reward them. Notice one aspect of the viral strategy — the ad lasts amazingly long. TV ads are 30 seconds long, because they have to pay for every second. The shame shame shame goes on incredibly long — because youtube doesn’t charge by the second and making a strong impression is key to making people share it or uh copy a link to their low traffic blog (hey but every bit helps).

By New Deal democrat
Why I’m expecting a 2nd half rebound in housing
In all of the storm und drang about yield curve inversions in the bond market, one important and overlooked consequence is how it is likely to help the very important housing sector.
This post is up at Seeking Alpha.
As usual, clicking over should be educational for you and helps me with a penny or two.

By New Deal democrat
Weekly Indicators for January 6 – 10 at Seeking Alpha

My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.
Recent gyrations have changed both the short and long term forecast. Once again, it shows that the biggest problem is that most forecasters simply project existing trends forward.
As usual, reading the article should be informative for you, and helps reward me with a little pocket change for my efforts.

By Joseph Joyce
Global Networks and Financial Instability
The ten-year anniversary of the global financial crisis has brought a range of analyses of the current stability of the financial system (see, for example, here). Most agree that the banking sector is more robust now due to increased capital, less leverage, more prudent balance sheets and better regulation. But systemic risk is an inherent feature of finance, and a disturbance in one area can quickly spread to others through global networks.
The growth of financial markets and institutions during the 1990s and 2000s benefitted many, including those in emerging market economies that became integrated with world markets during this period. But the large-scale extension of credit to the housing sector

May this year be better than last.  Any predictions?

By New Deal democrat
Weekly Indicators for December 24 – 28 at Seeking Alpha
My Weekly Indicators column is Up at Seeking Alpha.
Ideally a change in trend in the long leading indicators should, over time, manifest in the short leading indicators.
Well, in the first half of 2018, the long leading indicators went from positive to weak positive to neutral, where they have generally remained ever since.
Now, the short leading indicators have …. Click over and read to find out!