Tag Archives: US EConomics

I think I missed this one by Michael Smith. I did not delete it out of my In-Box/ Even so it is interesting . . . Death to Farm Credit from Those on High, Farmer and Economist, Mike Smith I’m in between fall crop planting and have to focus so I am going to run this like the rancher on the clock. Farm Credit System History  In 1916 when the Farm Credit System was established there were 6 million farms that employed around 30% of the US...

Almost nobody is still getting laid off, but this week, it’s not good enough  – by New Deal democrat Today and tomorrow update the two remaining positive sectors of the economy: jobs and real personal income. And the first one continued to give excellent historical readings, but relatively speaking suffered in comparison to their all-time best readings from exactly one year ago. Initial jobless claims rose 7,000 to 198,000, while the more...

More on the sharp deceleration in YoY house price gains, and the Fed’s chasing the phantom menace  – by New Deal democrat Since there is no big economic news again today, let me fill in a little more detail on house prices through January, reported yesterday, vs. CPI for shelter. Here is the monthly % change for the past 18 months for Owners Equivalent Rent in the CPI (blue), vs. the Case Shiller national index (gold) and the FHFA purchase...

YoY house price gains continue to decline  – by New Deal democrat Today is a travel day so I have to keep this brief.  On a monthly basis for January, prices rose 0.2% as measured by the FHFA house price index. But because that was far less of an increase in January last year, YoY house prices as measured by the FHFA index declined to +5.3%. This implies that by January next year OER as measured in the CPI will only be up about 2.1% – well...

3 graphic signs of financial stress  – by New Deal democrat The theme of my weekly “high frequency” economic indicators update over the weekend was the sudden deterioration in some measurements of financial stress. Tomorrow we’ll find out that house prices as measured by both the FHFA and Case Shiller have decline further, and that increases are substantially lower than as measured by the CPI, and on Friday we’ll find out what two of the...

I have read enough on the bailing out of two banks (Silicon Valley Bank and the smaller Signature bank). in 2018, I had argued against increasing the $50 or $100 (?) billion limit to $250 billion. These were commercial banks which were allowed in 2008 to join with Wall Street banks to dabble in securities, Banks writing home mortgages had skipped the practice of registering them with the counties. Not a safe practice. Here we are in a situation where...

With the exception of the One-handed Economist, quite a few of these consumerism and environmental articles show up in my In-Box. Some of them are actually quite good. In the past I did have some of them my In-Box Post. I thought this time I would break them out separately. Most of the are from Treehugger and Consumer Affairs. Consumerism: What is credit and how does it work? ConsumerAffairs, Jessica Render. People are getting credit from...

Weekly Indicators for March 20 – 24 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat I’ve neglected to put this up for the past several weeks, but by now you know where to find my latest Weekly Indicator post at Seeking Alpha. Probably unsurprisingly, in the week after the Silicon Valley Bank failure, just about every financial stress indicators suddenly spiked. In other words, credit conditions, which had already tightened by the end of last year,...

Via Diane Ravitch’s blog comes this note and bio to watch Dr. Fenwick livestream presentation. I am pointing to her work as somebody worth a look. Living with Histories That We Do Not Know with Leslie Fenwick  Tuesday, April 11, 4 p.m. ET Dr. Fenwick will draw on her sustained contribution to education policy research and groundbreaking findings from her recently published award-winning and bestselling book, Jim Crow’s Pink Slip. Dr....

This is a mixture of my comments and comments pulled from multiple sources (BLS, Cosmopolitan, , Why do Child Labor Laws Matter? Federal laws provide a minimum of protections for child labor. The laws were enacted nearly a century ago in reaction to children being exposed to dangerous activities. Edwin Markham “Child at the Loom.” Cosmopolitan There was a time in this country when young children routinely worked legally. As industry grew in the...