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The following is a letter by Professor John Weeks and Ann Pettifor, published today, 15th March 2016 in The Guardian.  Andrew Harrop’s article on John McDonnell’s public borrowing for investment points out its improvement on the chancellor’s deficit obsession (John McDonnell’s new fiscal rule is strong, but it’s no election winner, theguardian.com, 11 March). Of particular concern is George Osborne’s determination to “balance the books” by cutting current spending on the disabled. To...

Rail Week Ending 06 March 2016: Worse Than Last Week Week 9 of 2016 shows same week total rail traffic (from same week one year ago) declined according to the Association of American Railroads (AAR) traffic data. Intermodal traffic continued to improve year-over-year, which accounts for approximately half of movements but the weekly railcar counts remained in contraction. Relatively speaking, this week was worse than last week, and the improvement seen last week is fading. Up a bit in...

U.S. Commercial Property Prices Drop for First Time in Six Years By Kara WetzelMarch 7 (Bloomberg)Values fell 0.3% in January from prior month, Moody’s says.Decline is `significant milestone’ showing shift in sentimentU.S. commercial real estate prices dropped in January for the first time since 2010, a sign of weakening demand by investors after a six-year rally that pushed values to records.The Moody/RCA Commercial Property Price Index slipped 0.3 percent from December, Moody’s Investors...

Tough to give this a positive spin… And note the downward slope of the chart, as weakness continues to spread from oil capex to the rest of the economy: NFIB Small Business Optimism IndexHighlightsThe small business optimism index slipped 1 point in February to 92.9, a 2-year low that reflects incremental declines across six of 10 components. The report’s two employment components both inched 1 point lower with plans to increase employment still at a positive reading of 10 and job openings...

Another weak number, and the series was revised as well. And for GDP to grow the same as last year, all the ‘pieces’ have to grow the same, and this one isn’t keeping up: Consumer CreditHighlightsBreaks in the consumer credit series, due to changes in source data or methodology, are not uncommon, leading to sudden swings such as in mid-2011. Such a break is responsible for a big revision to December, now at a revised increase of $6.4 billion from an initial $21.3 billion. The revision is...

OECD secretary general Jose Angel Gurria, US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen and British chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne chat during a G20 photocall. Photograph: Rolex Dela Pena/AFP/Getty Images “For the proposition that supply creates its own demand, I shallsubstitute the proposition that expenditure  creates  its  own income”   JM Keynes Collected Writings, Volume  XXIX,  p.  81 G20 Finance Ministers met in Huangzhou, China recently and refused appeals from both the IMF and...

One more sign we’re losing our first world status- under Obama manufacturing jobs have actually gone up for the first time in a long time, albeit from very low levels: Sales growth is near 0: Truck sales are up some from a year ago but peaked in September: And no sign of runaway big govt here: The last mini run up has flattened out?

Some commentary on the latest Saudi price changes: Saudi raises crude price to Europe, Asia, cuts it for US Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter, Wednesday raised the April prices of its oil to Asia and Europe but cut it slightly for shipments to the United States. My quick WRKO radio interview Down some more, as previously discussed:He’s going the right way, but it’s relatively small and he’s unfortunately still out of paradigm which puts it all at risk of ‘losing the debate’...

As per the charts, a big dip last month was followed but a partial recover this month, but overall it’s going nowhere: Factory Orders Employment dropped from 52.1 to 49.7- not good: ISM Non-Mfg IndexHighlightsThe great bulk of the nation’s economy enjoyed a solid February based on ISM’s non-manufacturing report where the headline index held solidly over breakeven 50, at 53.4 vs January’s 53.5.New orders came in at 55.5, down 1 point from January but still very solid. And backlog orders...

Some up a bit, some down a bit, overall looks to me like downward price pressure continues:Down this week and still moving largely sideways: This is a forecast for Friday’s employment report. It was a little better than expected: ADP Employment ReportHighlightsFriday’s employment report may be on the strong side based on ADP’s private payroll count for February which is a stronger-than-expected 214,000. ADP isn’t always an accurate barometer of the government’s data but it has been the last...