Mosler Economics

Contraction: The tariff induced collapse of global trade continues: Politicization of weather forecasting: NOAA staff warned in Sept. 1 directive against contradicting Trump Elliott Management, a top activist shareholder firm, announced Monday that it has a $3.2 billion stake in AT&T. WarnerMedia, which owns CNN, is under AT&T. “Great news that an activist investor is now involved with AT&T. As the owner of VERY LOW RATINGS @CNN, perhaps they will now put a...

Still decelerating hard due to the tariffs causing a collapse in global trade:

Up for the month, but still trending down, and on an inflation adjusted basis still well below the highs of the last cycle: Up for the month, but still trending lower: And lower in this survey with the same type of trend: Up for the month but still trending lower: Clinical… Trump shows apparently altered Dorian trajectory map

Highlights Going into the accelerated trade tensions of August and before the US-China tariff hikes of September, US trade was improving, at least slightly. July’s trade deficit came in at $54.0 billion which is well down from June’s revised $55.5 billion total but still marginally over the $53.9 billion monthly average of the second quarter. This comparison gets net exports off to a slow start for third-quarter GDP. The bilateral goods deficit with China rose sharply in...

This was before the new round of tariffs took effect, which will only make things worse: US Factory Activity Contracts for 1st Time since 2016 The ISM Manufacturing PMI in the US fell to 49.1 in August from 51.2 in the previous month, missing market expectations of 51.1. The reading pointed to the first contraction in the manufacturing sector since January 2016 as new orders and employment declined amid US-China trade dispute. Serious contraction here: Congress has some...

With personal income decelerating shouldn’t surprise anyone if personal consumption does same, not to forget benchmark revisions just took employment down by 500,000 dampening that source of personal income: US Personal Income Grows the Least in Nearly a Year Personal income in the United States increased 0.1 percent month-over-month in July of 2019, following an upwardly revised 0.5 percent gain in June and below market expectations Seems tariffs have reversed trumped up...

Back down: Highlights After jumping sharply in June, pending home sales sank sharply in July, falling 2.5 percent which is well below expectations. Yet the 105.6 showing for the index is nevertheless among the best showings of the last year. Today’s results will hold down August forecasts for existing home sales which had been mostly flat before jumping sharply in July. Tariffs not having the intended result yet: Trump reportedly promised pardons to aides who break the...

The US is about to send a lot more oil into an already oversupplied world market The U.S. is about to boost its status as a major oil exporter. New pipelines are coming online to transport oil from a bottleneck in the Permian Basin to the Gulf Coast where it can be shipped to the world. The U.S. is turning the Gulf Coast into a major export hub, and that could one day make U.S. crude an international benchmark, according to Citigroup’s Ed Morse. Citigroup says U.S. oil...

This is before the latest round of tariffs which will only make things worse: Up a bit for the month, but still working it’s way lower. Also, the chart is not inflation adjusted, so in real terms it’s far below prior ‘peaks’: Growth of home prices is slowing: Speaks for itself: Highlights Deep contraction in production pulled down the national activity index in July to minus 0.36 versus an upward revised 0.03 in June in what now is a rare gain for this index. The 3-month...

It’s all in contraction: A slump in freight shipping flashes warning signs for economy as US-China trade war rages Air freight volumes fell nearly 5% in June, the eighth consecutive month of declines.Freight airlines say demand has dropped amid the worsening trade war between the U.S. and China.Economists and executives are trying to assess the health of the economy amid conflicting signals.