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Based on a preliminary estimate from WardsAuto, light vehicle sales were at a 17.65 million SAAR in September. That is down about 2% from September 2015, and up 4.3% from the 16.92 million annual sales rate last month. Read more at http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/#ycdZ4cVpGQLvjHoI.99 Manhattan apartment sales plunge 19 percent By Robert Frank ISM New York Report On Business September 2016 ISM New York 49.6 in September. New York City business activity largely held...

from David Ruccio While Wells Fargo (whose CEO blamed employees for his bank’s failings) has put traditional banks in the news lately, the resurgence of the so-called shadow banking sector has largely gone unnoticed. Until now. The Dallas Fed (pdf) has issued an alarming report concerning the growth of financial activities that, while connected to traditional banks, remains largely unregulated—even under Dodd-Frank. “Shadow banking,” an almost sinister-sounding term that originated in...

Worse than expected, prior month revised lower, and year over year now in contraction as the downtrend continues. Watch for further downward q3 GDP revisions: Highlights Multi-family units are just about the only strength in what is a weak construction spending report for August, down 0.7 percent on the month with July revised 3 tenths lower and into the negative column at minus 0.3 percent. Construction spending on new single-family homes fell 0.9 percent for the third...

For a group that has helped change the way economics is taught at universities up and down Britain, the Post-Crash Economics Society had a less than momentous start. It was November 2012 when seven undergraduates met in a cramped room on the top floor of Manchester university’s student union. Chairs drawn into a semi-circle, they listened as the two founding members went through a brief PowerPoint presentation explaining what they thought was wrong with the economics curriculum. A polite...

Big move down into contraction as the trend continues:This downtrend is intact as well: Flattened out as oil capex collapsed, and well below levels of prior cycl:

The consumer isn’t ‘coming back’ until after deficit spending, public or private, increases to offset unspent income, and ‘putting money into savings’ (below) is better described as ‘increasing borrowing less’. Also, consumption spending includes health care premiums and utility bills, and when they go up it tends to later take away from spending on other things: Highlights August was a soft month for the consumer, both for income and especially for spending. Income rose only...

Stamps are money. And as such often adorned with the heads of presidents. A sign of the times: nowadays also with the heads of super models (Anton Corbijn meets Doutzen Kroes edition, both live up to their reputation). The core neoliberal value: companies and markets first, families second. Which explains the absence of involuntary unemployment from neoclassical macro models. But this value is also bad for the health of young children The core free choice value of western society (maybe...

download the whole issue Negative interest rates or 100% reserves: alchemy vs chemistry          2Herman Daly          download pdf Why negative interest rate policy is ineffective and dangerous          5Thomas I. Palley          download pdf  Japan’s liquidity trap          15Tanweer Akram          download pdf Paul Romer’s assault on ‘post-real’ macroeconomics          43Lars Pålsson Syll          download pdf                                                                           ...

from Dean Baker Most workers suffer serious consequences when they mess up on their jobs. Custodians get fired if the toilet is not clean. Dishwashers lose their job when they break too many dishes, but not all workers are held accountable for the quality of their work. At the top of the list of people who need not be competent to keep their job are economists. Unlike workers in most occupations, when large groups of economists mess up they can count on the media covering up their...

Still on the downward glide path since the collapse in oil capex: Highlights Existing home sales, in sharp contrast to new home sales, haven’t been able to build any strength this year and today’s pending home sales report points to outright weakness in the coming months. The pending index fell a very steep 2.4 percent in August with 3 of 4 regions positing monthly declines. The exception is the Northeast which rose 1.3 percent in the month and is the only region in the plus...