Mosler Economics

Rolling over: Fiscal this tight means they are entirely dependent on exports for growth, and exports have been collapsing with US tariff policy: From the ECB: “Currently extra-euro area imports and exports of goods and services amount to around half of euro area GDP.”

The 5th Deadly Innocent Fraud continues to take its toll:

Fell back this month after last month’s spike from the drop in rates and still looking to me like it’s going nowhere from historically depressed levels, and not population adjusted: Highlights Upward trajectory is the theme of housing starts and permits, in data where September’s headlines don’t always tell the fundamental story. Housing starts came in at a 1.256 million annual rate in September that falls not only well short of expectations but also August which is revised...

Weak income and employment growth tends to coincide with weak retail sales growth, as the global trade collapse continues: Highlights The consumer cooled but not enough to not knock back a still rising trend for retail sales which in September fell an unexpected 0.3 percent. All the breakdowns also came in well below expectations including a 0.1 percent dip when autos (one of September’s weaknesses) are excluded and no change when also excluding gasoline. Perhaps the best...

Rolled over and headed lower: Note the collapse in the growth of China’s imports due to the tariffs, which equals rest of world exports to China:

Tariffs have caused a global economy (that has a pro cyclical bias) to turn south. It’s always an unspent income story. When decisions to not spend income (decisions to ‘save’) are not sufficiently ‘offset’ by agents spending more than their incomes GDP (sales/income) decelerates until said deficit spending- private or public- expands to fill the gap.

Heading south: Sales in contraction year over year and inventories again elevated: Highlights Wholesale inventories rose 0.2 percent in August which is down from an initial estimate of 0.4 percent posted late last month. Inventories in July rose 0.2 percent. Sales at the wholesale level are subdued, unchanged in August to keep the stock-to-sales ratio in the sector unchanged at 1.36. For GDP, wholesale inventories in the first two months of the third quarter rose roughly in...

Highlights Small business optimism continues to ease, down 1.3 points in September to a slightly lower-than-expected 101.8. No components rose in the month with six down and three unchanged. The report notes that uncertainty is up and respondents are more reluctant to make major spending commitments. Tariffs are cited by 30 percent of the sample as a negative for their business. Labor compensation continues to rise in contrast, however, to selling prices which are...