Tag Archives: Uncategorized

Continues to decline and now down for the month: HighlightsThe lowest mortgage rates in three years are not causing much of a stir in purchase applications for home mortgages, down 3 percent in the June 24 week for the third weekly decline straight. The year-on-year increase in purchase applications volume is a still very strong 13 percent, though far below the 30 percent gains seen in March. Even mortgage refinancing activity abated, down 2.0 percent after rising 7 percent...

This is a comment that Asad Zaman left on Lars Syll’s post Mainstream economics — a pointless waste of time, but it deserves a post of its own. My view is that economics does perfectly what it is designed to do. It is a MISTAKE to think that conventional economic theory is WRONG. In order to make progress, it is essential to understand the function of economic theories. 1. Every economic policy hurts some groups and helps others 2. No group has sufficient POWER to ENFORCE policies...

June 29th, 2016 In September 2015, we were pleased to accept the invitation to serve on an Economic Advisory Council (EAC).  We felt strongly that it represented an opportunity to develop a vision of a progressive economic policy for Britain that departed from the destructive austerity narrative. Our collective view is that the EAC, and its various policy review groups, has indeed had a positive influence on the development of Labour’s economic policy, and we hope it continues whatever...

Still at recession levels: HighlightsCorporate profits sank in the first quarter, revised to minus 2.3 percent year-on-year vs the initial estimate of minus 3.6 percent. Profits are after tax without inventory valuation or capital consumption adjustments. Revised up mainly due to residential investment, which isn’t looking so good in q2. And the downward revision to personal consumption weakens the ‘resilient consumer’ narrative, especially with employment softening in q2....

download here

From: Erwan Mahé ” This is why one of the only ways to get out of the current mess is to bring together all the major decision-making states in Europe, including Germany, to decide on a clear-cut stimulus programme, minus the sterile Maastricht criteria.” Brexit shock. And now what? All the investment scenarios have been shaken in the wake of the surprise victory of the Leave forces in the Brexit referendum last Thursday. The many discussions I have held with clients since the referendum...

from David Ruccio The U.S. economy is a remarkable success according to the standards of neoclassical economic theory. Yet, for “prime-age” men, who need to work to provide for themselves and their families, it is increasingly a failure.   That’s the clear lesson from the latest report from the Council of Economic Advisors (pdf) on “The Long-Term Decline in Prime-Age Male Labor Force Participation” (which has been taken up and discussed in a wide variety of news media,...

Still looks to me like the vote will have no material financial consequences? “The UK will have to renegotiate 80,000 pages of EU agreements, deciding those to be kept in UK law and those to jettison. British officials have said privately that nobody knows how long this would take, but some ministers say it would clog up parliament for years.” As previously discussed, the drop in oil prices led to increased consumer imports and reduced exports, both of which fundamentally...

Graph 1. Wage levels and vote shares, Brexit. Brad deLong is very annoyed about this Voxeu piece by a whole slew of famous economists, which advises that we, as a consequence of Brexit, have to double down on the Euro. Full disclosure: the piece is also signed by Brad’s academic Bossom Buddy Barry Eichengreen. I agree with the gist and arguments of the piece of deLong: “From my perspective, this piece at Vox.eu makes many too many bows to conventional-wisdom idols with not just feet but...

Gradual deceleration looks to be continuing:Growth here had been increasing, helping to offset the decline in govt. deficit spending, but after the oil capex collapse this measure of credit growth leveled off:Real estate as well as consumer loan growth have also leveled off:This story is all about income here as well. The consumer has been hit hard twice due to the recession and then tax hikes and it’s all ratcheted down a notch each time. Even in the prior recession personal...