Tag Archives: Hot Topics

Properly measured, consumer prices have been in *deflation* since last June  – by New Deal democrat The majority wisdom is that the Fed is going to go ahead and raise interest rates again when it meets next week. I have been arguing for months that the data has not supported interest rate hikes. As of this morning, I am officially taking the position that, properly measured, inflation has been conquered, and the US economy has actually had...

January JOLTS report consistent with a softening, but still very strong, labor market  – by New Deal democrat This morning’s JOLTS report for January, unlike the recent payrolls report, generally showed further softening in the labor market. While hires (red in the graph below, normed to a value of 100 as of February 2020) increased 121,000, quits (gold) declined 207,000, and openings (blue) declined 410,000: The downward trend in quits...

Coronavirus dashboard: the first year of COVID endemicity  – by New Deal democrat As I indicated back in January, I don’t plan on any regular COVID dashboard updates unless something noteworthy has occurred. Since we are now 1 year into endemicity, this is a good time to look back and see what that means. The huge initial Omicron spike started in late November 2021 and ended early in March 2022. Since March 1 of 2022, here is the range of...

Many of you know me from my telling of past experiences. Here is one more to add to the pile. A recent email to me about an employment opportunity in automotive. My return email to the headhunter. Renaldo: Thank you for your interest.  Having been trapped between Engineering and the plants over the years where I was working was an experience. No amount of logic would sway their demands for what they wanted regardless of their being a part of...

Jobless claims: the situation remains, ‘all system go’  – by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims declined -2,000 last week to 190,000, while the 4 week moving average increased 1,750 to 193,000. Continuing claims, with a one week delay, increased 5,000 to 1,655,000. All of these remain excellent numbers: To repeat my meme over the past year, virtually nobody is getting laid off. It’s almost impossible to have an economic downturn with...

I am in Arizona these days and watching the state and local area scramble to get developments approved before the Federal Agency in charge of the Colorado River water decides who gets what. I suspect if you have an approved Build, a state will be allowed to build it. The Feds have applied the new restricts and the counties have to show they have a 100-year water supply. Interesting maneuvering in this story. Outside of Phoenix sits a farm. The...

Housing prices continue to come down – like a feather  – by New Deal democrat As I’ve repeated many times in the past 10 years, in housing prices follow sales with a lag. Housing permits and starts both peaked early in 2022, and house prices followed during the summer. This morning the FHFA and Case Shiller house price indexes for December showed continued declines both on a monthly and YoY basis, continuing to presage a similar decline in...

Durable goods orders: more deceleration, still no recession  – by New Deal democrat I normally don’t pay too much attention to durable goods orders. That’s because they are very noisy. They don’t always turn down in advance of a recession (see 2007-08), although they may at least stall, and there are a number of false positives as well (see 2016) as shown in the graph below showing up until the pandemic: But in 2022 they were one of the last...

by David Zetland (originally published at The one-handed economist) Don’t take water for granted In his 1987 hit, “Diamonds on the soul of her shoes“, Paul Simon sings: She said, “You’ve taken me for grantedBecause I please youWearing these diamonds” This lyric, although a bit paradoxical, has always resonated with me, and I’ve applied it in many “taking-for-granted” situations. One of them concerns clean water, which most of us have...

Weekly Indicators for February 20 – 24 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. While several of the important coincident indicators continue to hover just above neutrality, importantly neither long term Treasury yields nor corporate bond yields nor mortgage rates have made a new high in the past 4 months, and historically that has been significant. As usual, clicking over and reading will...