The Angry Bear

Via AOL is an interesting program: The Federal Emergency Management Agency is testing a new “presidential alert” system nationwide for the first time next week that will make it possible for Donald Trump to directly message nearly everyone in the nation who has a cell phone. Officials insisted that the system cannot be used for political purposes. FEMA also assured people that it can’t track cell phone users’ locations through the alert system. No one...

Subdued inflation helps gains in real average and aggregate wages With the consumer price report Tuesday morning, let’s conclude this weeklong focus on jobs and wages by updating real average and aggregate wages. Through July 2018, consumer prices are up 2.7% YoY, while wages for non-managerial workers are up 2.8%. Thus real wages have finally grown, ever so slightly, YoY: In the longer view, real wages have still been flat — up only 0.5% — for...

August JOLTS report: thriving jobs market, and still-thriving Taboo against raising wages Tuesday’s JOLTS report once again confirmed the very good employment report from one month ago: Quits made a new all-time high Hires are just below their expansion high of two months ago Total separations made a new expansion high Layoffs and discharges improved, but not to their expansion low made in March Job openings made yet another all-time high Let’s update...

 by New Deal democrat Decelerating trends in 5 long leading indicators I have a new post up at Seeking Alpha, “Five Long Leading Indicators ‘On the Cusp’.” The post follows up on my “Weekly Indicators” paradigm with graphs showing what the trends look like for aforesaid five series which have been hovering at the borderlines of being positive to neutral, or neutral to negative, over the past few months. If you like my work, putting a little jingle in my...

Real median household income rose 1.8% in 2017; poeverty rate declined The Census Bureau reported Sept. 12 that *real* median household earnings rose 1.8% in 2017.  Here’s their presentation graph: This is another score by Sentier Research, whose monthly estimates have accurately forecast the Census Bureau’s (very tardy) annual reports and showed, on an annualized basis, growth in 2017, but on an averaged basis less than that from 2014 to 2015, or...

W(h)ither Italy? I returned a few days ago from a conference in Italy where I spoke with some former economic  advisers of the Five Star Movement (M5S), which is now in a coalition government with the hard right wing Lega, formerly the separatist Northern League, which has now gone national, appealing to southern Italy with a strong anti-immigrant push.  While the not very exciting M5S leaders push for a minimum income guarantee,  Lega’s Matteo Salvini...

I have to link to this column, which is better than Krugman’s average. It is mostly Krugman’s usual shrill praise of fiscal stimulus. I find two things notable. One is that he has no time or column inches for unconventional monetary policy. He’s back to “monetary policy was ineffective because we were at the zero lower bound on interest rates.” Being an extreme skeptic about the effectiveness of QE and all that, I am pleased. Second he stresses housing...

If Trump applies a 25% tariff on a $1.00 item the price will go to somewhere from $1.00 to $1.25.  At $1.00 domestic producers have have been building all they can to sell at $1.00.  In the short run they can not build more capacity so the domestic producer can raise their price to $1.25, or something under $1.25 if the foreign supplier can absorb part of the tariff.  In the longer run domestic producers can produce more of the item but their costs will...

Kevin Hassett Needs Remedial Arithmetic Kevin DOW 36000 Hassett was sent out to the White House press to lie about real wage growth. Or maybe he just proved he seriously needs remedial math for another reason besides one that Brad DeLong notes: Glassman and Hassett get the math of the Gordon equation for valuing the stock market simply wrong. It’s not the earnings yield that shows up in the numerator, it’s the dividend yield. The book should have been...