Tag Archives: US EConomics

 by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for June 6 – 10 and a comment on COVID I’m still traveling, so light posting for a couple days more. In fact, I neglected to post a link to my Weekly Indicators on Saturday. A bit tardy, here it is. Conditions across all time frames do not look so good, and with Friday’s poor inflation report, I expect the Fed to continue stomping on the brakes – especially since we know that the YoY change in rents...

Consumer prices rise 1% in May alone; owners’ equivalent rent at 30 year high; expect the Fed to keep stomping on the brakes Today is a travel day for me, so I’ll keep this relatively brief. People who were hoping inflation would abate did not get the news they wanted from the May CPI. Consumer prices rose 1.0% in that month alone. Inflation less energy rose 0.7%, and “core” inflation less food and energy rose 0.6%. On a YoY basis, prices are...

Initial jobless claims now in a clear uptrend, and other economic notes for the week First, a note on other economic news from earlier this week.  The housing market is getting absolutely crushed by 10 year+ high mortgage rates. Mortgage applications fell to levels not seen since 2017 (except for a few weeks during the 2020 Covid lockdowns). Refinancing is at 20 year lows. The next questions are when prices will peak, and what will happen with...

Dale Coberly has written on Social Security numerous times over the years. The Northwest Plan which he developed was recognized by the SS Administration as being a potential solution to a shortfall in SS benefits. Dale briefly describes below how the solution might work in resolving the SS shortfall. Just a heads up. I am not sure if Dale will give a lengthier report. ~~~~~~ The 2022 Social Security Trustees Report was released a few days ago....

RJS: MarketWatch 666 Summary: Construction Spending Up 0.2% on Higher Prices in April, after March Spending was Revised 0.6% Higher The Census Bureau’s report on construction spending for April (pdf) estimated the month’s seasonally adjusted construction spending was at a $1,744.8 billion annual rate during the month. Up 0.2 percent (±0.8 percent)* from the revised March annual spending rate of $1,740.6 billion, and 12.3 percent (±1.3...

 by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for May 30 – June 3 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The slow drip, drip, drip of decelerating or declining data is continuing, as among other things, the YoY increase in withholding tax payments from workers has declined significantly in the past month. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment in what is happening in the economy,...

May jobs report: Like the past few months, I was most interested in three main issues: 1. Is the pace of job growth decelerating?  (Yes, but it is still very strong by historical standards) 2. Is wage growth holding up? Is it accelerating? (It is still strong, but decelerated again slightly) 3. Are the leading indicators in the report beginning to flag? (Not yet) We still have 822,000 jobs, or 0.5% of the total to go to equal the...

After all this time, and even with the benefit of history, the causes of World War One (WWI) are still a matter of discussion amongst scholars. For scholars living then to have understood what the causes were, they would have needed to have known an awful lot about all that was going on at the time; which would have been difficult. They would also have needed to cross the philosophical Rubicon and not have allowed long-held beliefs and norms to...

I have worked with Alan Collinge and Student Loan Justice Org. for at least a decade on student loan bankruptcy. This article was taken from the Tallahassee Democrat. This article has some numbers on who is impacted, which has been presented, and largely ignored here and other places. United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) led their colleagues...

April JOLTS report: record low layoffs, still near record high quits and job openings Late last year, I introduced the idea that the jobs market was similar to a game of musical chairs. Employers added or took away chairs, and employees tried to best allocate themselves among the chairs. Because of the pandemic, there have been several million fewer players trying to sit in those chairs, leaving many empty. Additionally, there is 10% greater...