Tag Archives: US EConomics

A note on producer prices and (possibly) cooling inflation One point I make from time to time is that, with seasonally adjusted data, YoY comparisons can miss, or at least lag, turning points. We *may* have such a situation developing with producer prices as evidenced by this morning’s report (Feb. 15). On a YoY basis, producer prices for finished goods (red in the graph below) are up 12.5%, while commodity prices are up 19.3%. Consumer...

The current trend in both cases and deaths in the US has me the most hopeful I have been in over 6 months. Here’s why. Nationwide, cases have declined to 150,000, only 30,000 above their level just before The Omicron wave started, and about 10,000 less than their Delta peak: The Omicron wave has been almost completely symmetrical. Cases started to rise exponentially roughly on December 15. They peaked about 4.5 weeks later. Now, about 4.5...

There has been quite a lot of news over the past few years regarding agriculture specific to governmental assistance, from providing crop subsidies during the Trump Trade War to the Biden Administrations attempt to tamp down inflation via meat processing capacity increases, as well as an attempt to revive a few ideas that had been tabled by previous administrations. The largest focus for the USDA is without a doubt the SNAP food assistance program...

Real Wages Grew During Two Years of COVID-19 After Controlling for Workforce Composition Sean Howard, Robert Rich and Joseph Tracy February 15, 2022 I propose you just read it. They are quite convincing. The bottom line is that real wages increased last year (the top line is nominal wages and yes I like to take figures of speech literally) This is interesting for two reasons. First, the vast majority of our fellow citizens would...

The return of the “Oil Choke Collar”! For the first five years after the end of the Great Recession, one of the staples of my analysis was the concept of the “oil choke collar.” By that I meant that typically recessions had occurred after there was a sudden and sharp upward spike in the cost of gas, inflicting such pain that consumers cut back drastically on other spending – causing a prompt economic downturn. But what if, instead, gas prices rose...

RJS, MarketWatch 666, “CPI Rose 0.6% in January on Higher Prices for Food, Clothing, Electricity, Used Vehicles, & Furniture; Annual Inflation Now at a 40 Year High” The consumer price index rose 0.6% in January, as higher prices for food, clothing, rent, electricity, used vehicles, airfares, furniture, and appliances and were only slightly offset by lower prices for gasoline, utility gas, and car and truck rentals . . . the Consumer Price...

Real wages continued to stall in January, portending a consumer slowdown, but don’t reverse Let me follow up on yesterday’s post about the January CPI by talking about “real” wages. Since both average real hourly wages and consumer inflation increased in January by 0.6%, real hourly wages for non-supervisory workers were flat month over month: Real wages have been essentially flat since June 2020, with the exception of last winter and...

RJS, MarketPlace 666, US Trade Deficit Rose 1.8% in December and up 27% in 2021 Our trade deficit rose 1.8% in December as the value of both our exports and our imports increased, but our imports increased by more….the Census report on our international trade in goods and services for December indicated that our seasonally adjusted goods and services trade deficit increased by $1.8 billion to $80.7 billion in December, from a revised November...

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for February 7 – 11 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.  Last year my task was easy, because the issue was whether to describe the economic Boom as “red hot” or “white hot.” With interest rates having risen between 1/2% or 1%, depending on which type being measured, and inflation having eaten up wage increases, the task this year is more challenging. But the end of a...

Jump in January consumer prices seals the deal on Fed interest rate hikes, New Deal democrat Consumer prices increased 0.6% in January, the third time in four months that it has come in over 0.5%. Energy increased 0.9%, which isn’t a horrible monthly rate, but YoY energy prices for consumers are up 27%, just below their YoY peaks in 1974, 1979, 2005, and 2008 – not coincidentally 3 out of 4 of which coincided with deep recessions: ...