Tag Archives: 2024

 – by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog New Deal democrat has been writing and featured at Angry Bear for years now. His economic outlooks have been accurate with few exceptions. As always the US economy is independent of us in the short term. Read on as NDd’s remarks are focusing on a sound labor market. ~~~~~~~~ As I wrote Friday, the news from the employment report was almost all good. Let’s follow up on the most important points...

In sum, this month’s report was very much consistent with a “soft landing” scenario, which must be regarded as the default outcome at this point. Read-on for the details . . . – by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog In the past few months, my focus has been on whether jobs gains are most consistent with a “soft landing,” i.e., no further deterioration, or whether deceleration is ongoing; and more specifically:  Whether there is further...

 – by New Deal democrat There’s no big economic news today, but yesterday existing home sales were released. While they have historically constituted up to 90% of the entire market, they have much less economic impact than new home sales, which involve all sorts of construction activity, followed by landscaping, furnishings, and other sales. Since the Fed started raising rates two years ago, the two markets have gone in entirely different...

Angry Bears’ Social Security expert Dale Coberly emailed this to me about the same time it showed up in my inbox. Republicans again are trying to sell the public on the need to cut Social Security and Medicare Budgets for those over 65. Cutting them while keeping the Trump tax breaks which will result in a $2 trillion deficit by the time Reconciliation measures end in 2025. The cuts makes no sense as both programs are far more efficient and effect...

 – by New Deal democrat Initial and continuing claims once again continued their recent good streak.  Bonddad Blog Initial claims declined -2,000 to 210,000, while the four-week moving average rose 2,500 to 211,250. Continuing claims, with the typical one-week delay, increased 4,000 to 1.807 million: While these aren’t the 50+ year lows we saw 18 months ago, they’re not far off. For forecasting purposes, the YoY% change for initial...

 – by New Deal democrat at the Bonddad Blog Prof. Menzie Chinn at Econbrowser makes the point that the yield curve is still inverted, and has not yet eclipsed the longest previous time between onset of such an inversion and a recession. So he believes the threat of recession is still on the table. And he’s correct about the yield curve, although it is getting very long in the tooth. In the past half century, the shortest time between a 10...

February consumer inflation: the tug of war between gasoline and shelter continues The Bonddad Blog  – by New Deal democrat Last month I described the trend in consumer inflation as an ongoing “tug of war” between energy and housing. Energy (mainly gasoline) peaked in June 2022 and made its low in June 2023, while housing, which peaked in early 2023, has been gradually disinflating since. That tug of war continued in February. Energy...

Scenes from the February jobs report: yes, the Household Survey really was recessionary  – by New Deal democrat Later this week we get a lot of interesting reports, including CPI tomorrow, retail sales on Thursday, and industrial production on Friday. In the meantime, let’s take a further look at some of the more noteworthy data from Friday’s employment report. In particular, as I wrote then, the Household Survey portion of that report was...

Weekly Indicators for March 4 – 8 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. Generally speaking, there is a demarcation between consumer-oriented data, which is in the main positive, and manufacturing-oriented data, which is mainly weak or negative. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment on the economy, and reward me with a little lunch money. New...

February jobs report: the Household Survey is downright recessionary, while the Establishment Survey is decidedly mixed  – by New Deal democrat In the past few months, my focus has been on whether jobs gains are most consistent with a “soft landing,” i.e., no further deterioration, or whether deceleration is ongoing; and more specifically:  Whether there is further deceleration in jobs gains compared with the last 6 month average,...