Tag Archives: Hot Topics

March jobs report: leading sectors turn down in a pre-recessionary, but still quite positive, report  – by New Deal democrat Unsurprisingly, my focus on this report, like the last few reports, was on whether residential construction jobs turned negative or not, whether manufacturing and temporary jobs continued on their downward trajectory, and whether the deceleration in job growth would be apparent. Some of the deceleration or decline...

The Overdue Selection of Stuff from My In-Box. Some days are good at Angry Bear. Getting a background in how to run a Blog by myself at this time. Sometimes run out of ideas. Fortunately, I have good influx of articles hitting my In-Box daily. I recently cleaned out a couple of thousand emails going back a couple of years. Hoping Dan will get better and can join me. He was the brains and is the owner of Angry Bear. I just write or C&P . . ....

Except for the beginning, mostly a copy and paste here. Housing is an issue in the U.S. There are not many appropriately priced house being built or used ones on the market. The same holds true for apartments. We have a lot of young families trying to figure out where to live. Then once they decide, they can not find the necessary housing much less the pricing they can afford. Now, I said it twice. Do you get the picture? The author has described...

February JOLTS report shows further *relative* weakening in the jobs market  – by New Deal democrat The February JOLTS report showed a weakening in almost all important trends. The strongest component of the entire series has been job openings. I tend to place lower significance on this, because there is ample evidence that companies have “gamed” this metric either to build up a bank of resumes, or else to suggest that their growth is strong...

Both manufacturing and construction continue to contract  – by New Deal democrat As usual, we start the month with data on last month’s manufacturing activity, and the previous month’s construction activity. This month, both were negative. The ISM manufacturing index, which has had an excellent record as a leading indicator for the past 75 years, declined to 46.3, its lowest level since the pandemic recovery began. The new orders index,...

Infidel753, Prosecuting Trump — a caveat, Infidel753 Blog. Just two weeks early . . . It’s starting to look as if Trump may be indicted fairly soon, an event much of the left has been impatient to see for some time (what I myself most wanted was to simply never hear another word about him, but it’s clear that the reality we live in is not going to grant that wish for the foreseeable future).  The case coming to a head is the Stormy Daniels...

Social Security Trustees’ Report Is Out So Is CRFB’s Analysis by Dale Coberly Look, I don’t like CRFB.  They claim to be the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), but in the years I have been watching them they have looked more like the Committee to Cut Social Security. Today my inbox presented me with a note from CRFB on this year’s Trustees Report.  As far as I can tell CRFB is telling the truth here, strictly speaking. ...

Revisions to Q4 GDP made real final sales worse, a potential portent of near in time recession  – by New Deal democrat A month ago, following another blogger, I took a look at real final sales, and real final sales to domestic purchasers, in the GDP – which increased less than 0.5% and just above 0% in Q4, and showed that in the past 60 years, only in the deep slowdowns of 1966 and 1987 were the numbers that low without having been followed...

Almost nobody is still getting laid off, but this week, it’s not good enough  – by New Deal democrat Today and tomorrow update the two remaining positive sectors of the economy: jobs and real personal income. And the first one continued to give excellent historical readings, but relatively speaking suffered in comparison to their all-time best readings from exactly one year ago. Initial jobless claims rose 7,000 to 198,000, while the more...

YoY house price gains continue to decline  – by New Deal democrat Today is a travel day so I have to keep this brief.  On a monthly basis for January, prices rose 0.2% as measured by the FHFA house price index. But because that was far less of an increase in January last year, YoY house prices as measured by the FHFA index declined to +5.3%. This implies that by January next year OER as measured in the CPI will only be up about 2.1% – well...