Tag Archives: New Deal Democrat

June jobs report: strong headline numbers, betraying numerous signs of rougher times Consumption leads employment. That’s true at bottoms, and it’s true at peaks as well. Since February, when consumption growth started to flag, I have been waiting for it to show up decisively in jobs numbers. In March through May, average growth decelerated from over 500,000/month to 400,000/month. So in this jobs report, I have been most interested to see if...

Coronavirus dashboard for July 5: no sign of a BA.4&5 wave in cases yet, as the next variant has appeared in India  – by New Deal democrat I haven’t done a Coronavirus dashboard in a couple of weeks, and there have been a few developments, so let’s take a look. First of all, the BA.4&5 variants continue to increase their share of infections in the US, now at 70% of all cases: Regionally, BA.4&5 are most prevalent in the South...

Independence Day, 2022  – by New Deal democrat The opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence: “ When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires...

“Manufacturing and construction start out the second half of 2022 with more bad news“  – by New Deal democrat Let’s take a look at the new month’s first data, on manufacturing and construction. The ISM manufacturing index, and especially its new orders subindex, is an important short leading indicator for the production sector. In June, for the first time, the leading new orders index showed slight contraction, declining below 50 to 49.2...

Real personal income and spending decline in May, while the saving rate increases (not good!) In May nominal personal income rose 0.5%, and spending rose 0.2%. But since the personal consumption deflator, i.e., the relevant measure of inflation, rose 0.6%, real income fell -0.1%, and real personal spending fell -0.4%. While both real income and spending are well above their pre-pandemic levels, I have stopped comparing them with that, but...

Initial claims continue weakening trend, but are not signaling recession this year Initial jobless claims declined -2,000 (from an upwardly revised 233,000), to 231,000 last week, vs. the 50+ year low of 166,000 set in March. The 4 week average rose further, by 7,250 to 231,750, compared with the all-time low of 170,500 twelve weeks ago.  Continuing claims declined 3,000 (from an upwardly revised 1,331,00) to 1,328,000, which is 22,000 above...

Two long leading indicators – real money supply and credit conditions – worsen  – by New Deal democrat ~~~~~~~ M1 and M2 money supply for May was reported yesterday by the Fed. The former was unchanged for the month, and the latter was up a tiny 0.1%: That is significant. Why? Because real money supply is a long leading indicator. Real M2 fell out of favor after failing to actually decline YoY prior to the 2001 and 2008 recessions, but a...

A comment on housing, inflation, and Fed policy (and a side comment on spending) No big economic news today, and as usual little State reporting on COVID over the weekend, so let me make a couple of points. As an initial note, the big report I will be paying attention to this week is personal spending and income, which will be reported on Thursday. As I’ve noted several times recently, the goods-producing side of the economy has been fading...

Existing home sales: the freight train of price appreciation rolls on Although existing home sales are less economically important than new home sales, what has been happening with their prices, given the experience of the housing bubble and bust 15 years ago, is of added importance. The simple summary is that sales have declined substantially, while price appreciation keeps rolling on. Sales of existing homes were down 3.4% for the...

Coronavirus dashboard for June 19: documenting the transition from pandemic to endemic ~~~~~~~ The COVID-19 pandemic is ever so gradually transforming into an endemic illness, the major risks of which still mainly fall on seniors. Here is the long-term view of cases (dotted line) and deaths (solid line) in the US: While cases are similar to the peaks of 2020, but far below those of 2021, deaths are lower than at any point except for June...