The Angry Bear

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for October 11 – 15 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. There are a couple of signs that the inflationary surge may be at or just past its peak, mainly in that the costs for ship transportation, which have been soaring for months, have stopped doing so and in one case have reversed. Meanwhile, on the production side, some commodity costs are still increasing sharply. As...

Another strong month for real retail sales growth; to cope, employers are going to have to sweeten the pot to add employees Real retail sales, perhaps my favorite monthly economic indicator since they tell us so much about average consumer behavior, and are also a good short leading indicator for jobs, were reported this morning for September, and they were positive. Nominally retail sales increased +0.7%, after a +0.2% upward revision to +0.9%...

Jobless claims: a renewed downward trend? Jobless claims declined 36,000 this week to 293,000, another pandemic low. The 4 week average also declined 10,500 to 334,500, also another pandemic low: With the exception of the last few years of the last expansion, this level of weekly initial claims would be very low for any point in the last 50 years, and the 4 week average would be average for an expansion: Continuing claims...

Articles from my Inbox as usual. There is a common thread or threads here of private equity getting more involved. It is bad enough with ACOs buying up medical facilities. We are losing control of healthcare. “Insurers are taking decisions out of the hands of physicians, says ortho surgeon,” beckersasc.com Dr. Grant Shifflett: I don’t want to paint a bleak picture, but I look at this in terms of the voice we have as physicians. And it seems...

According to American libertarians, the dangers of covid authoritarianism are clearly on display in Australia.  We’ve looked at some of these claims before.  Here is some additional context from Van Badham, writing in today’s New York Times: Last week, the myth of our enslavement propelled aspirational allies into the streets. In the United States,  Poland  and Britain, distinctly non-Australian protesters assembled outside Australian diplomatic...

The same as the American Rescue Plan Act and the Improving Medicare Coverage Act, no one is talking of the detail within the Build Back Better Agenda bill. This makes it very vulnerable to pseudo Senators like Krysten Sinema and Joe Manchin who are holding out for what ever reasons or just for spite. It is also good for Angry Bear to know its content too. If there are questions, ask away. I will try to answer with what I know. Build Back Better...

Continuing accelerated consumer inflation points to sharp slowdown, but no recession imminent Inflation, along with the expiration of the emergency pandemic payments, is one of the two big threats to this expansion. This morning’s report on consumer inflation for September, at 0.4%, was certainly elevated compared with its typical pre-pandemic reading of 0.2%/month, but on the other hand was the third month in a row of sharp deceleration from...

August JOLTS report: progress towards a new jobs equilibrium? This morning’s JOLTS report covers August, which you may recall featured a disappointing jobs report (since revised somewhat higher ), during which the Delta wave was growing to its worst levels, and two months after a number of GOP-controlled States terminated enhanced unemployment benefits, on the theory that they were excessive and were coddling idle workers. Despite this, last...

Farmer and Farm Economist Michael Smith on latest proposed business policies which can impact U.S. Farming. Secretary and former Fed Chair Janet Yellen recently went on CBS in order to sell the changes to the tax code provisions that would trigger events yet unknown at the $600 level,  and potentially beyond. I’ll leave this proposal up to you if it is a great idea or not. A dish washer purchase audit is probably bad tax policy, but I’ll...