Tag Archives: Uncategorized

In line with expectations as real disposable income growth remains at or below ‘stall speed’, as per the charts. And the total growth of that measure of income since the 2008 peak remains very low. On the consumption side, the mini jump in auto sales provided the (small) boost for the month, though down year over year, and auto sales forecasts for August are all pointing to a resumption of weakness: Highlights Income picked up slightly in July and consumption slowed...

from Asad Zaman A driving spirit of the modern age is the desire to banish all speculation about things beyond the physical and observable realms of our existence. This spirit was well expressed by one of the leading Enlightenment philosophers, David Hume, who called for burning all books which did not deal with the observable and quantifiable phenomena: “If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning...

from David Ruccio On Tuesday, I began a series on the unhealthy state of the U.S. healthcare system—starting with the fact that the United States spends far more on health than any other country, yet the life expectancy of the American population is actually shorter than in other countries that spend far less. Today, I want to look at what U.S. workers are forced to pay to get access to the healthcare system.According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, about half of the non-elderly...

More evidence the wheels are coming off, not that there have been any doubts… From WardsAuto: Forecast: U.S. Light Vehicles Sales Weaken in August A WardsAuto forecast calls for August U.S. light-vehicle sales to reach a 17.4 million-unit seasonally adjusted annual rate, less than like-2015’s 17.7 million and July’s 17.8 million, but ahead of the 17.2 million recorded over the first seven months of this year. From J.D. Power: August Decline in New-Vehicle Sales Fourth in...

Something I wrote that got published in 1998: Revised down, note how the year over year growth has been continuously decelerating ever since the collapse of oil capex, and the strength in consumer spending looks like it could be about healthcare premiumus, which portends cutbacks elsewhere, hence the weaker q3 retail sales, etc. And with inventories still looking way too high, proactive inventory building doesn’t seem likely. Nor does the most recent housing data bode well...

from Grazia Ietto-Gillies The business media is awash with news about transnational companies (TNCs) be they in the services or manufacturing or agriculture sector. The news may refer to performance or strategies or plans for real investment (or the lack of them) or takeovers. There is currently also considerable interest in their tax minimization strategies. Yet economics textbooks and courses are still shying away from this most relevant part of our contemporary economies. This is true...

Weakness now includes the service sector: United States Services PMIThe Markit Flash US Services PMI came in at 50.9 in August of 2016, down from 51.4 in the previous month and below market expectations of 52. It is the lowest reading since February with business activity, new orders and employment all slowing due to subdued demand conditions and uncertainty ahead of the presidential election. Up a bit more than expected for the month, but remains in contraction year over...

Why did the crisis last so long in Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Denmark (graph 1) and much shorter (four years!) in the UK, Poland and Sweden (graph 2, at the end)? Lack of Aggregate Demand in the former countries? Not according to Scott Sumner. This post will however show, point by point, some counterexamples to the ideas of Scott Sumner about what he calls ‘AD voodoo‘- and especially his claim that “there is almost no theoretical or empirical support for the new voodoo claims, and...

Bad news for housing today- mtg purchase apps at the lows of the year, prices moderate, and existing home sales weak, so, as previously discussed, not looking like housing will be contributing to growth this year:

from David Ruccio While I was finishing up the latest right-wing libertarian dystopian finance novel, I was also trying to figure out the dystopia that the U.S. healthcare system has become. Clearly, for most Americans, the combination of private healthcare and private health insurance (and, now with Obamacare, public subsidies) is a nightmare. There is a glaring contradiction between healthy profits and the health of the U.S. population. Over the course of the next couple of weeks,...