Tag Archives: Uncategorized

Car sales continue to soften from the highs of last year. And May sales unchanged from April would mean no contribution to growth this month: U.S. Light Vehicle Sales increase to 17.4 million annual rate in May by Bill McBrideBased on a preliminary estimate from WardsAuto, light vehicle sales were at a 17.37 million SAAR in May (Preliminary estimate excluding Jaguar Land Rover and Volvo).That is down about 1.5% from May 2015, and up slightly from the 17.32 million annual sales rate last...

Down 5% after last week’s up 5%… ;) MBA Mortgage Applications Note that the total is in decline:This (limited) measure of retail sales is still depressed and weakening as well:Two manufacturing indexes out today. The first was slightly lower than last month and trending down: PMI Manufacturing IndexHighlightsMarkit Economics’ U.S. manufacturing sample continues to report nearly dead flat conditions, at a final May index of 50.7 which compares with 50.5 for the mid-month flash and a final...

Is money ‘neutral’? Is it just a veil over ‘real’ transactions? Or does it affect the level and composition of ‘real’ expenditure? Stephen Cecchetti and Enisse Kharroubi recently published an article which in a very net way shows that money (and credit) is non-neutral. It’s not a veil. It’s part of the essence of our economy. The abstract: “We examine the negative relationship between the rate of growth of the financial sector and the rate of productivity growth. Using a panel of 20...

from Dean Baker Eduardo Porter used his NYT column this week to remind us that we have seen people like Donald Trump before and it didn’t turn out well. Porter is of course right, but it is worth carrying the argument a bit further. Hitler came to power following the devastating peace terms that the allies imposed on Germany following World War I. This lead to first the hyper-inflation that we will continue to hear about until the end of time, and then austerity and high unemployment that...

from David Ruccio According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, in 2014, for the first time in more than 130 years, adults aged 18 to 34 were more likely to be living in their parents’ home than they were to be living with a spouse or partner in their own household or in any other living arrangement. Dating back to 1880, the most common living arrangement among young adults has been living with a romantic partner, whether a spouse or a significant other. This type of arrangement...

Yet another pretty good April release that I suspect will be reversed in May, as has happened with several other data series. And the increased spending on gasoline due to higher prices coincided with a reduction in the savings rate, as April spending outstripped income. And note that March’s +.1 was revised to 0 with this April number also subject to revision. Personal Income and OutlaysHighlightsApril was definitely the month of the consumer as consumer spending surged 1.0 percent for the...

from Robert Locke I am constantly perplexed by the way people on this blog handle the development of science as a history of ideas.  I find this view particularly expressed in the exchange of opinions Asad  Zaman provokes in his posts and comments to which others respond.  I have noted that trying to explain the development of science without going into the political, social, and economic environment in which science exists, will not bear much explanatory fruit.  Here are three examples of...

Branko Milanovic gets philosophical about productive and unproductive labour. Is a dentist productive? A soldier? A lobbyist? Seen from the angle of national accounting such questions, important as they are, are beside the point as these accounts aim to gauge total income and all labour which yields an income (wages, profits, whatever) is considered to be productive. As it enables people to gain an income…  People work for the money, even when they are protecting the environment. Which...

Hi everyone – or, at least, whoever is left out there. As you probably know, this blog has been shut down since October 2014 and I have pretty much fallen off the face of the planet. Actually I’ve been working in investment where I’ve found a job that allows me to pursue non-mainstream economic research. Some of you may recall that I was writing a book during the last days of this blog. I’m happy to say that this book is now fully completed and has been accepted for publication by...

Pretty much as expected, inflation a bit lower. Inventories revised up so Q2 that much more likely to see an inventory reduction along with associated cuts in output: GDPHighlightsFirst-quarter GDP is now revised higher but only slightly, to an annualized growth rate of plus 0.8 percent for a 3 tenths gain from the initial estimate. Upward revisions to residential investment and exports are behind the small gain along with an unwanted upward revision to inventories. Nonresidential...