Tag Archives: Taxes/regulation

JOLTS revisions paint brighter labor market picture Last Friday’s JOLTS report for January included some important revisions, particularly with regard to hiring.  So let’s take a closer look.As a refresher, unlike the jobs report, which tabulates the net gain or loss of hiring over firing, the JOLTS report breaks the labor market down into openings, hirings, firings, quits, and total separations. I pay little attention to “job openings,” which can...

By Jeff Soplop Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and the Economics of Privacy Cambridge Analytica – the data firm that provided consulting services for the Trump Campaign – has come under intense scrutiny for the firm’s capture and exploitation of vast quantities of user data from Facebook. These practices have added new urgency to questions about how information is collected online and how to protect users’ privacy rights. From The New York Times: “The firm...

Import and export growth and an expanding trade deficit do not need a strong dollar. We have had some discussions about dollar weakness and questions for those of us who expected the federal deficit to lead to a larger current account deficit through a strong dollar. I’ve looked at the data in a different way and now wonder if we really need a change in the dollar to achieve a larger current account deficit.   If you look at real imports and exports you...

Prime age labor force participation: disability and homemaking decline About a year ago I wrote a series of posts on various reasons for the relatively low labor force participation by prime age individuals, and its effect on wages; In my post summing up that study I wrote: A major element of the participation rate is comparison with other alternatives to being in the labor force. Two alternatives to labor participation appear to have had a...

Lifted from comments by PGL: The dollar has devalued since Trump became President: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TWEXB Barry Eichengreen has some interesting thoughts here: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/what-explains-dollar-weakness-by-barry-eichengreen-2018-03 “One of the big ones in the circles I frequent is dollar weakness. Between January 2017 and January 2018, the broad effective exchange rate of the dollar fell by 8%,...

by New Deal democrat February update: real wages and real spending Now that we have February inflation, let’s take an updated look at real wages and real spending. First of all, real average hourly wages increased slightly in February, but are still -0.6% under their July peak: But, because the total hours worked surged so much in February, real aggregate wage earnings, which had stalled since July, rose to a new record: If it’s not revised...

(Dan here. Spencer sends this e-mailed post): by Spencer England Real trade balance and 1st Q real GDP growth Figure 1 With the federal deficit jumping from 3.5% to 5% of GDP  the US will be expanding its current account deficit by a like amount.  You can see it in the January trade balance where the real trade balance has expanded from around $60,000 ( real 2009 ) to around $70,000 ( real 2009 )   or 16%.   The real trade deficit is the flip side of the...

Trump on Our Trade Surplus/Deficit With Canada Menzie Chinn listens to the latest from Donald Trump so we don’t have to: And by the way, Canada? They negotiate tougher than Mexico. Trudeau came to see me, he’s a good man, he said we have no trade deficit with you, we have none. Donald, please. Nice guy, good looking guy. Comes in. Donald we have no trade deficit. He’s very tough. Everyone else, getting killed or whatever. But he’s tough. I said, well...

Kudlow Predicts An Investment Boom Kudlow channels his inner Gerald Friedman: Larry Kudlow, picked to be President Trump’s new economic adviser, has privately told the White House that the nation’s economy is on the verge of 4 percent to 5 percent growth, or more than double the last decade. In a recent gathering with Trump, he said that many firms held back investing until the tax reform package passed and “some of that is already showing up.” What’s...

The Grand Illusion 2.0 Introductory note: this is a very long epistle. But I think my point needs to be made fully and at length. Before you go further, in fairness here is the TL:DR version: Advocates of free trade and globalization were taken aback a week ago by the assumption by China’s President Xi Jinping of rule for life. This was because it runs completely contrary to their theory that free trade leads to economic liberalization, which in turn...