Tag Archives: US EConomics

Why the Fed’s present rate hike campaign is almost unprecedented – by New Deal democrat Just how unprecedented is the Fed’s current rate hike policy? Since the Fed started actively managing the Fed Funds rate in the late 1950s, only two other occasions are similar. The reason the Fed is hiking rates is to combat inflation. But, as I have pointed out in the past, the post-pandemic Boom is very similar to the immediate post-WW2 Boom. In 1947...

The important trend in retail sales that Redbook’s weekly report is telling us about  – by New Deal democrat This is the first of hopefully two posts I will put up today. Tomorrow retail sales for December will be reported. In advance of that, I wanted to discuss their comparison with the weekly high-frequency data of Redbook consumer sales, which I have been paying heightened attention to in the past several months. Here is what Redbook...

Weekly Indicators for January 9 – 13 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. One thing that comes with the territory of high frequency indicators is that they can be noisy. And at no time of the year can they be noisier as during and right after the Holiday season. That appears to be the case this week, as a number of coincident indicators in particular displayed volatility. This should...

“Peter Drucker Sets Us Straight,” January 12, 2004 (cnn.com), Peter Drucker and Brent Schlender This is an oldie from 2004 which still has relevance to what has occurred and is occurring in the world today. Any number of times I have found myself fixing supply chain operations globally for various companies of different countries. Ninety-Four year-old guru says most people are thinking all wrong about jobs, debt, globalization, and recession....

Real average wages and real aggregate payrolls for December 2022  – by New Deal democrat Now that we know December consumer inflation, we can see how the American working/middle class is “really” doing. Nominally, average wages for nonsupervisory workers increased 0.2%, while prices deflated by -0.1%, meaning that “real” average wages increased 0.3% for the month: While this only returns them to April’s level, and -2.2% below their...

Jobless claims start out 2023 where they left off in 2022 – as positive  – by New Deal democrat It took a little while for FRED to post this data today, but with that reason for a delay . . .  Initial jobless claims started off 2023 where they left off in 2022, with another good print. Initial claims declined -1,000 to 205,000, while the more important 4 week average declined -1,750 to 212,500. Continuing claims also declined, down -63,000...

Consumer inflation remains dominated by gas prices (good) and shelter (bad)  – by New Deal democrat Declining gas prices continue to do wondrous things for the economy. In December they declined from roughly $3.50 to $3.10/gallon. Meanwhile the phantom menace of Owners’ Equivalent Rent continues to drag “core” inflation higher. Details below. Total inflation: -0.1%m/m , +6.4% YoY (12 month+ low), +0.9% since June, 1.8% annual rate Core...

An in-depth look at production and sales: evidence of peaking in both  – by New Deal democrat Yesterday I took an in-depth look at employment. Today let’s take a look at two other important coincident indicators that are looked at by the NBER for guidance as to whether or not the economy is expanding or in recession: production and sales. As I’ve mentioned several times in the past month, as of the latest readings it looks like industrial...

‘Right-to-repair’ advocates skeptical of John Deere agreement, NPR, Joe Hernandez Pulling from NPR’s Joe Hernandez’s article and adding some of my automotive background. to explain. Like automobiles, tractors have gone high-tech using on-board computers and semi-conductors to run various systems within cars and also farm tractors. This includes systems such as fuel injection to oxygen ratios, ignition, timing, temperature, and the overall...

Scenes from the December jobs report: more deceleration  – by New Deal democrat The only significant economic data this week will be released on Thursday, with both CPI and jobless claims. In the meantime, let’s take a closer look at the jobs data we got last Friday. As indicated in the title of this post, the theme was “deceleration.” First, here is the long term YoY look at total employment (blue), employment in goods-producing industries...