Tag Archives: Hot Topics

December real retail sales tank; industrial production also declines; consumer slowdown seems nearly certain   – by New Deal democrat Two days ago, in connection with consumer inflation, I reiterated that: “we certainly are at a point where a sharp deceleration beginning with the consumer sector of the economy is more likely than not.” I didn’t expect to have it show up so soon! Retail sales, one of my favorite “real” economic indicators,...

Continuing unemployment claims make new 45+ year low – by New Deal democrat New claims increased 23,000 last week to 230,000. The 4 week average of new claims increased 6,250 to 210,750: The big increase is likely affected by seasonality. It’ll be another week or two before we can tell if there is any real change in trend. If there is, it is likely to be a flattening in new claims rather than any significant increase.  Continuing claims...

Commenter and Blogger RJS, Focus on Fracking, Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a new 19 year low; commercial crude inventories fall to 45 month low, total oil supplies lowest since January 20th 2012; implied gasoline demand at 11 month low The Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration for the week ending January 7th indicated that despite a big drop in our oil exports, a...

Incoming Virginia Governor Youngkin Goes In All Anti-Environment  Incoming GOP Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has just announced his choice for Secretary of Natural Resources, Andrew Wheeler, a longtime coal lobbyist, who served as Trump’s EPA director in the latter part of his term. He has an utterly abysmal environmental record, so bad I cannot think of a single thing he did that I can applaud or even just vaguely approve of. It was just...

I am temporarily banned by Twitter for “Violating our rules against hateful conduct.” because of the attached tweet. I don’t know if “all men must die” was interpreted as a threat rather than a simple statement of fact by the algorithm or if calling deontological reasoning confused or fanatical was considered hate speach. Maybe I should have writtn “Valar Morgulis”. I do face a problem “By clicking Delete, you acknowledge that your Tweet...

It was this year; a question arose on the distribution of Covid tests to the states and why shouldn’t some states receive more tests than others. The question referenced Florida as one of those states. The question was put to Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary. I admire Jen for the job she does as there is no mincing of words or delays in her responses to the adversarial reporters in the mix. Her answer was (my memory), the tests are...

Commenter and Blogger RJS, MarketWatch 666 There has been good coverage on the two jobs reports on AB already. I will post my takes on the trade deficit and construction spending below, both of which I estimate 4th quarter GDP impacts. I have high confidence in my GDP estimate for trade in goods, since the release includes inflation adjusted figures, but much less confidence in my construction estimate (which i note) because I use the producer...

One Man’s Toilet Water is Another Man’s Organic Farm, Michael Smith, Agricultural Economist and Farmer In my search to find sustainable sources of organic material to turn into viable soil modification vectors, I had been struggling to source material to add to the Padina sands that are in abundance in our lands. See, in late 2020 we had five tons of compost brought in all at once and we scattered it here and there. Before that we had brought...

Classicalism and Revolution, Econospeak, Barkley Rosser  For those of you of a branch of Orthodox Christianity still using the Julian calendar, such as the Russian branch, Merry Christmas! I am tempted to comment on the situation in Kazakhstan, but I think we do not know what is going on there yet, so not now. Instead somehow I have been thinking about something that has something to do with economics, but I am going to look at it in other...

Prof. Joel Eissenberg, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Geneticist The Nobel Laureate economist Paul Samuelson famously acknowledged in a Meet the Press interview: “Well when events change, I change my mind. What do you do?” This observation applies to the advice from medical authorities such as the CDC and WHO during the COVID pandemic. Some members of the public are fond of pillorying these agencies for having published...