Tag Archives: US EConomics

Real wages for nonsupervisory employees make 19 month low, but no recession signaled Yesterday’s CPI report showed that prices increased 0.8% in February. Meanwhile, the jobs report indicated that average hourly wages for nonsupervisory workers increased 0.3%, so real hourly wages declined -0.5% for the month: As shown in the above graph, real wages had been essentially flat since July 2020, varying from 0.8% above, to -0.3% below. Pending...

Today’s lesson: never simply project the current trend forward An important reason why I am so insistent on dividing data into long leading, short leading, and coincident indicators is in order to avoid the most common pitfall in any forecasting, which is that of projecting the current trend forward. This morning PPI for February was reported. Frequently – but not always! – commodity prices lead producer prices, which in turn lead consumer...

Another big increase in consumer prices in February, as the yield curve tightens Consumer prices increased 0.8% in January, the fourth time in five months that it has exceeded 0.5%. YoY inflation is now 7.9%, the highest rate since 1982. My favorite measure, CPI ex energy, is also up 6.6% YoY, the worst since the 1981-82 recession as well: My rationale for tracking CPI ex-energy is that, unless energy costs filter through into the...

JOLTS report for January: the game of employment musical chairs continues The Census Bureau JOLTS report for January, released this morning, indicates that the jobs market continues to be nowhere near equilibrium – which continues to be a good thing for workers’ wages.   Several months ago I introduced the idea of a game similar to musical chairs, where employers added or took away chairs, and employees tried to best allocate themselves...

Jobless claims continue low, but lows for this expansion likely already past Initial claims (blue) rose 11,000 to 227,000 (vs. the pandemic low of 188,000 on December 4). The 4 week average (red) rose 500 to 231,250 (vs. the pandemic low of 199,750 on December 25). Continuing claims (gold, right scale) increased 18,000 to  1,494,000, (vs. 1,474,000 two weeks ago, which was the lowest number in over 50 years): We have probably seen the lows...

A Footnote to IT WAS BEDLAM! Lewis Corey was a pseudonym for Louis Fraida, one of the founders of the U.S. Communist Party. In a letter to Marcuse dated August 16, 1960, Raya Dunayevskaya replied at length to his request for references to the American literature dealing with the issues of “the transformation of the laboring class under the impact of rationalization, automation and particularly, the higher standard of living.” This was in...

The current spike in gas prices is not sufficient to bring about a recession (at least, not yet!) [Well, I never got around to a COVID update last week. Since most States don’t report over the weekend, I am going to wait until tomorrow. But the bullet point hint is: it increasingly looks like Omicron did what I expected Delta to do last fall. Stay tuned . . . ] Gas prices in my neck of the woods hit $4 over the weekend, and seem to be center...

  by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for February 28 – March 4 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.  There are two big stories dominating the data. The first is how inflation, and the anticipated Fed rate hike, are affecting interest rates. The second is the ramifications, particularly for commodities, of the new Iron Curtain that has descended around Russia.  As usual, clicking over and reading should...

RJS, MarketWatch 666; January’s construction spending As usual, I estimate the impact of revisions to prior months on 4th quarter GDP, and the impact of the January report on 1st quarter GDP… Construction Spending Up 1.3% on Higher Costs in January after December and November Spending Was Revised Higher The Census Bureau’s report on January construction spending (pdf) estimated January’s seasonally adjusted construction spending would...

Fascist Traditionalism And Putin’s Invasion Of Ukraine  About a half-century ago I was urged by my oldest friend to read a book by Fritjof Schuon (1907-1998) written in 1953, The Transcendental Unity of Religions. The book’s title basically tells its message: that while each religion has its own exoteric forms that differ from those of each other, there is a core to all of them that is the same, a transcendental unity of cosmic truth and...