Tag Archives: US EConomics

Surely someone, not something, must be to blame, must be responsible for whatever catastrophe that may have just occurred. Even CNN knows this. Blaming an event on someone obviates the need to fully explain, to seek a cause; relieves us of the responsibility to understand, to acknowledge the true cause. Seems it is somehow better if someone started the forest fire; not lightning or the effects of Climate Change. Blaming someone is different than...

Commenter and Blogger RJS, MarketWatch 666, Personal Income Rose 0.5% in October, Personal Spending Rose 1.3%, PCE Price Index Rose 0.6%, Savings Rate Lowest Since December 2019 The October report on Personal Income and Outlays from the Bureau of Economic Analysis includes the month’s data for our personal consumption expenditures (PCE), which accounts for more than 70% of the month’s GDP, and with it the PCE price index, the inflation gauge the...

 by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for November 22 – 26 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Despite the roiling of the financial waters (on thin trading, with all of the A-list movers and shakers away from their desks) on Friday, the underlying indicators for the economy in all timeframes remain generally positive. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment about...

An Intro and some history: Alan Collinge at Student Loan Justice Organization. Alan has collected 1,065,931 signatures on his petition asking President Joe Biden to cancel student loan debt. His new goal is to reach 1.5 million signatures. If you believe in the cause you should sign his petition. Petition · President Biden: Cancel Federal Student Loans, and Return Bankruptcy Rights to the Rest. · Change.org Just a signature is all Alan is...

New home sales for October continue slow upward trend New home sales, while very noisy and heavily revised, tend to lead all of the other housing indicators, even permits. The heavy revisions figure, well, heavily, into this morning’s report. New home sales (blue in the graphs below) usually slightly lead to the much less volatile single-family home permits (red). The number of houses for sale (gold) lags consistently. Here is the long term...

The consumer spending spree continued in October, New Deal democrat Real personal income and spending held up well throughout the pandemic, due to a vigorous government response. With special benefits ended, the question has been: will they hold up? This month, the answer was a definite “yes.”In nominal terms, personal income increased 0.5% and spending rose 1.3%. In real terms, personal income (blue in the graph below) declined -0.2%, but real...

Lowest new jobless claims in over half a century The first two of four data releases this morning were corporate profits for Q3 and jobless claims for last week.Corporate profits, a long leading indicator, increased slightly in Q3 over Q2, by 1.9% or 4.2% depending on whether you include various inventory adjustments. Deflated by unit labor costs, they either increased by 0.3% or decreased by -0.1%. While they haven’t decreased significantly in...

Existing home sales and prices, increase slightly; inventory declines slightly [Programming note: There will be at least 4 significant reports tomorrow (Nov: 23): jobless claims, personal income and spending, new home sales, and corporate profits for Q3. Then nothing for the rest of the week. I may or may not report on everything tomorrow. I may hold some for Wednesday or Friday. Also, I will probably put up a Coronavirus Dashboard Wednesday or...

MarketWatch 666 Blogger RJS on the macroeconomic implications of retail sales, estimates the impact of retail sales on GDP. Retail Sales Rose 1.7% in October after August & September Sales Were Revised Higher Seasonally adjusted retail sales increased 1.7% in October after retail sales for August and September were revised higher…the Advance Retail Sales Report for October (pdf) from the Census Bureau estimated that seasonally adjusted...

Nobody is getting laid off: the continuing saga  Initial claims declined another 1,000 this week to 268,000, and the 4 week average declined 5,250 to 272,750, both – yet again – new pandemic lows: For the past 50 years, initial claims have only been at these levels for 2 months at the peak of the late 1990’s tech boom, and from late 2015 to just before the pandemic in 2020.’ Continuing claims also declined 129,000 to a new pandemic low...