Tag Archives: US EConomics

There is now only one significant manufacturing datapoint that is not flat or down – but it’s the one the NBER relies upon  – by New Deal democrat I am increasingly of the opinion that at the moment, the only two economic data series that are important are nonfarm payrolls and the personal consumption expenditure deflator. That’s because almost every other important metric of the economy is either flat or declining. But payrolls keep chugging...

[embedded content] If you think there is abuse in our welfare system, in this case TANF, you are correct. Only, it is not the people for whom the system is suppose to be helping. In fact, there are state who are sitting on the money not having spent/distributed it as they should have. As usual, John does a great job on this issue. “States have broad flexibility over the use of state and federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)...

What fired me up this morning? I retrieved a post sitting in the trash. A News clipping posted by Fred Dobbs considered to be dangerous by the Angry Bear system. I retrieved it and it sits at the end of my commentary on Wisconsin. The clipping is a nice history lesson on Wisconsin. Mine is editorial. I (we) lived in Wisconsin for almost a decade in the city built on an Isthmus. When I would fly home from some consulting manufacturing/supply chain...

New home sales for February increase; likely bottomed last July  – by New Deal democrat Most of what you probably read elsewhere focuses on new home prices, which after finally declining -0.7% YoY in January, rebounded to +2.5% YoY. As is usual, prices  follow sales YoY with a considerable lag (note since prices are not seasonally adjusted, this is the right way to make the comparison): In fact if you’ve been reading me and following my rule...

The Exxon Tiger Rampant, Bad Crow Review, Weldon Berger Links are at the end, doing linky stuff. _________________________________________________________________ “confidence is high in the oil and gas world” __________________________________________________________________ And why not? Record profits, massive new drilling projects in delicate environs, a presidential pronouncement validating decades more of fossil fuel burning and...

If you are not reading New Deal democrat as he marks the progress of the economy over the last year, you really should start. The detail on what certain economic markers determine are in his weekly analysis done on a daily basis for various markers. Updating 3 high frequency indictors: no recession yet, but no paucity of yellow flags – by New Deal democrat Aside from the Fed’s rate decision which will be announced this afternoon, it’s a...

February existing home sales confirm prices have declined, but bottom in sales and construction may be in  – by New Deal democrat There were only two noteworthy takeaways from the February existing home sales report: (1) like mortgage applications, permits, and starts, existing home sales responded to lower mortgage rates (a decline from just over 7% to just above 6% between last October and January): (2) As usual, price changes lag...

Average and aggregate nonsupervisory wages for February 2023  – by New Deal democrat There’s no significant economic news today, so let’s update a couple of income indicators important to average American working households. Namely, because we now have the inflation report for February as well as payrolls, we can update average and aggregate nonsupervisory wages. Average hourly earnings for nonsupervisory employees increased 0.5% on a...

Escape from Muddle Land, Econospeak, Peter Dorman Let’s get the up-or-down part of this review over with quickly: Escape from Model Land: How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do About It by Erica Thompson is a poorly written, mostly vacuous rumination on mathematical modeling, and you would do well to ignore it. Now that that’s done, we can get on with the interesting aspect of this book, its adaptation of trendy radical...

Industrial production ‘meh’ in February, but down sharply since last summer; real manufacturing and trade sales forecast to decline in Febuary  – by New Deal democrat Industrial production was unchanged for the month of February, while manufacturing production rose +0.1%. But the bad news is that both were revised lower for the past 5 months, as shown on the two graphs below: As a result, industrial production (blue below) is now -1.8% below...