Tag Archives: Hot Topics

Weekly Indicators for July 24 – 28 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. While there continues to be evidence of the normal progression of weakness from long leading to short leading to coincident indicators, there has also been an anomalous major positive resurgence in some of the short leading indicators. By normal historical standards, we “ought” to be well into a downturn. And yet...

Driven by the hurricane force disinflationary tailwind, real personal spending and income, and real sales, all increase nicely  – by New Deal democrat In the current economy the personal spending and income report is just as important as the jobs report. That’s because, despite the downturn in manufacturing production and many parts of the housing market, consumer spending especially on services has continued to power the economy forward....

As a warehouse manager for $250 million in sales annually warehouse, I was tasked with distribution, inventory, and costs. In other words, we had to ship on time to get inventory overseas via train to container ships and customs in a timely manner to our plants. We did it but not without my going back to the warehouse at night to check inventory to answer a plant of spend a Wednesday and much of Thanksgiving Day answering the Philippines facility and...

Continuing improvement in new jobless claims re-sets the clock  – by New Deal democrat Let’s get the easy part of this morning’s slew of data out of the way first:  initial jobless claims declined -7,000 to 221,000. The 4 week average declined -3,750 to 233,750. With a one week lag, continuing claims declined -50,000 to 1.690 million: All of these are generally 5 month lows. The more important YoY% change for forecasting purposes also...

This is one article I have found which openly supports the 340B program and establishes the reasons for a need of the program. Hospitals located in areas of low income citizens and uninsured patients are more likely to make use of this program than those in more affluent areas. Efforts disparaging this program because of bad players would weigh heavily amongst those institutions located in poorer areas providing care to their clients of need and the...

I came across this article on Steve Hutkins’ “Save the Post Office.” There has been a political effort to redefine the USPS into more of a business model and something it was never meant to be. Right now, the USPS is beginning to reimage its model and existence as led by Postmaster Louis Dejoy. There is much wrong with this effort. Both Mark Jamison and Steve Hutkins have been defining the issues with Dejoy’s plan in their articles at Save the Post...

Our daughter only applied to two colleges, Washington University in St. Louis and Colorado State University in Ft. Collins. Tuition wasn’t an issue, since her mom was an employee of Wash U, and the university pays full tuition at Wash U or half of Wash U’s tuition at any other college or university for all its employees. Half of Wash U’s tuition would cover most or all out-of-state tuition at any state university. Some of our St. Louis friends asked...

Prices for new single family homes down YoY,, while sales fluctuate; apartment rent changes YoY are zero  – by New Deal democrat June’s new home sales, and Apartment List’s Rent Report, this morning rounded out our view of this important leading sector through June. New single family home sales are the most leading of all the government housing reports, but they are very noisy and heavily revised. That was on full display this morning, as...

My parents died as paupers, so there wasn’t anything for me and my four siblings to “inherit” upon their deaths. No matter. I figure I got my inheritance on the front end, because my folks paid for my college education: tuition, room and board. Even correcting for inflation, tuition* at the University of Tennessee was cheap: ca. $160/quarter for a full load. I was fortunate that my parents had the money; even though I also carried a work-study job...

House prices stabilize (or even increase!) for existing homes, while prices have been slashed for new homes. What’s going on?  – by New Deal democrat Both the Case Shiller and FHFA housing price indexes were reported this morning through May. To quote each in turn: “The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, reported a -0.5% annual decrease in May, down from a loss of...