Tag Archives: US EConomics

With regard to the Albertson – Kroger merger.   CEPR’s Eileen Appelman discusses a private equity profit scheme involving the Kroger/Albertsons grocery megamerger. Albertsons will pay out about a third of its market value to its former private equity owners and investors in November as part of the merger with Kroger. The large payment sets up Albertsons for bankruptcy which Kroger can use to defend the merger. Appelbaum” “‘Albertson’s...

Housing on track for an early 2023 recession, but with a major caveat  – by New Deal democrat I don’t think anybody was expecting a good housing construction report this month. Those non-expectations were certainly fulfilled. Housing permits rose slightly, 1.4%, from last month’s 2 year low. Single family permits, which contain even more signal, declined -3.1% to the lowest level in 3 years excluding two pandemic lockdown months. The more...

September industrial production comes in very strong  – by New Deal democrat September’s industrial production report puts the final nail in the coffin in the notion that the US is already in recession. I call industrial production the King of Coincident Indicators because, more than any other single metric, it coincides with the peaks and troughs of US economic activity as determined by the NBER. In September total production increased...

The “Consumer nowcast” recession warning is triggered, as real wages decline, real aggregate payrolls near stall, plus record mortgage payments  – by New Deal democrat No economic news today. So, now that we have the September inflation read, let’s take a look at a couple of important consumer indicators: real average wages, and real aggregate payrolls for non-supervisory workers. Real average hourly wages for non-supervisory employees have...

Infidel753: “A dastardly plot,” Infidel753 Blog While winning a Senate majority increasingly looks out of reach for Republicans, a House majority is distinctly possible.  If they get it, they plan to force Democrats to make concessions which would almost certainly include cuts to Social Security and Medicare — possibly by drastically raising the eligibility age, though if they really want to cut spending quickly, it’s hard to see how they could...

Weekly Indicators for October 10 – 14 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Just about everything looks awful. And one bright spot, consumer spending as measured by Redbook, just got dimmer. Needless to say, if consumer spending rolls over, that’s pretty much the ball game.. You can be brought up to the virtual moment in the ugliness by clicking over and reading, and it will reward...

September real retail sales lay another egg  – by New Deal democrat One of my favorite indicators, retail sales, was reported for September this morning, and it came in unchanged. Which means that after factoring in +0.4% inflation in September, real retail sales were down -0.4%. Which is not good, because real retail sales have gone nowhere in 18 months, and have been down every single month since April with the exception of August, and are...

“Initial claims continue to rise along with gas prices“  – by New Deal democrat Last week I wrote that initial jobless claims may have ended their recent downtrend. This week appears to have confirmed that. Initial claims rose 9,000 to 228,000, and the 4 week average rose 5,000 to 211,500. Continuing claims, which lag somewhat, increased 3,000 to 1,368,000: With OPEC deliberately cutting back production in order to cause a shortage in...

As the economy slows, so has producer price growth  – by New Deal democrat Consumer prices for September will be released tomorrow. This morning the upstream producer prices were released. Total PPI rose by 0.4%, after two straight months of decline; but excluding those and December 2021, the lowest monthly increase since November 2020. Here are the monthly changes compared with CPI: YoY producer prices increased at the lowest rate in a...

I believe we are. This is kind of interesting. The article on the budget deficit is from August. From what I have been reading in WaPo, etc., they are claiming the deficit increased. This does not surprise me either with all the inflation occurring from oil, supply chain issues, etc. The question to ask is whether we are worse off than the 2008 collapse of Wall Street and the resulting recession. This article is from Politico; “White House...