Tag Archives: US EConomics

November Durable Goods: New Orders up 2.5%, Shipments Up 0.7%, Inventories Up 0.6%, MarketWatch 666, RJS The Advance Report on Durable Goods Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories and Orders for November (pdf) from the Census Bureau reported that the value of the widely watched new orders for manufactured durable goods increased by $6.5 billion or 2.5 percent to $268.3 billion in November, the 6th increase in seven months, after October’s new...

Income, spending, layoffs, and new home sales all point to a continuing expansion in 2022 We got our last batch of data before Christmas this morning. Almost all of the news was positive. I will be very brief.In the “coincident indicators” department, real personal income declined -0.2%, while real personal consumption expenditures increased less than 0.1%, although both remain well above their pre-pandemic levels:  Comparing real personal...

It’s A Wonderful Life: Faux Populism  Somewhere I never saw a full version of this classic, Its a Wonderful Life, but here it is on Christmas Eve, an official Christmas classic. I was always suspicious of it, from all I had heard, but it looks less worth than I had heard. I mean, really, local bank owner gets into real estate problems? And the well-intentioned owner is somehow some great hero? He is offered total control of local monopolies. Heck,...

The conversation started with my investment person about two particulars which I was curious as to what he was expecting in returns. Those two were losing somewhat over the last 5 months. Excitedly, he started off on how the Fed was going to rein in inflation. I listened and answered. However you do it, raising rates is not going to fix the infrastructure for supply chain, much less JIT, and the processes of increasing supply. In 2008, we had...

If Barkley is writing about it, it warrants space on AB. RIP Sharon L. O’Hare, Econospeak, Barley Rosser I know, I know, my part of this blog is increasingly resembling an obituary column. But, heck, people I know who are conneted to econ keep dying, although this one was not as well known as others. Sharon Lyn O’Hare was a former student of mine 40 years ago at James Madison University, and while she never finished her PhD at Boston...

Final existing home sales report of 2021 is positive  As we wind down the year, most of the remaining data will be from the housing sector. Tomorrow we get new home sales, then next week one final round of house price indexes.  Two months ago I wrote that “I suspect new home sales will increase, since interest rates stabilized at very low rates earlier this year, and the increase in existing home sales is some confirmatory evidence.” Since...

This topic is blowing up in the news. Politicians claiming recipients are laying out cash for drugs and other unneeded things. Funny thing, they didn’t give a damn when 20 million hydrocodone and oxycodone tabs showed up at five pharmacies in 4 small towns having a total population of ~22000 in 2016. Gotta keep those pharma contributions rolling into their campaign funds. I featured this in a 2018 post, if you read it . . . How are Low Income...

Farmer and Agriculture Economist Michael Smith “[Land profits] are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without the care and attention of his own” -Adam Smith In other words, land appreciates not by the owners doing, but his neighbors.  Sure, there are certain things that can be done to improve land, build a house, clear the brush and trees, install utilities. Or choose none of the above and wait.  The post pandemic...

November’s retail sales, industrial production, producer prices, & new home construction; October’s business inventories, Summary: Record 9.6% Annual Increase in November Producer Price Index; Record 6.9% YoY Increase in Core Prices; Record 7.1% YoY Increase for Final Demand Services, Record YoY 14.9% Increase for Final Demand Goods, and a 46+ year Record for Prices of Intermediate Goods The seasonally adjusted Producer Price Index (PPI)...

Real retail sales declined in November, but continue to auger well for strong jobs growth, New Deal Democrat Retail sales, one of my favorite “real” economic indicators, were reported this morning for November. They increased 0.3% for the month, and October’s blockbuster report was revised 0.1% higher, to +1.8%. After inflation, though, “real” retail sales declined  -0.5%.  Although real retail sales are down -2.6% from their April peak, they...