Tag Archives: US EConomics

This is an excellent review of what has helped the economy stay stable during the pandemic and some of the issues mostly centered around demand and supply chain. Spend a few minutes here and read NDd’s reasoning. A further examination of the state of the economic tailwind  – by New Deal democrat With no big economic news today, I thought I would pick up where I left off Friday, when I identified three major reasons for the economic tailwind...

Heard the same issue when I was in college after high school and trying to decide what I wanted to do. Pretty much Uncle Sam had plans for me when I decided I was not ready for college. I decided what I was going to do and foiled Uncle Sam’s choice for me. In relation to the value teacher’s provide to the students taught in poorer or lesser environments as compared to private or suburban supported schools, their pay should be commensurate to the...

Weekly Indicators for October 16 – 20 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Obviously, the big story of the week was the surge in interest rates. The 10 year Treasury yield closed above 5% for the first time since 2007, and mortgage rates went above 8% for the first time since 2000! Hard to see how the economy can withstand that for very long (if it persists!). But meanwhile the...

Opinion piece by Commenter Dennis Drew. Unions and Labor have been Dennis’s bailiwick for as long as I have been with Angry Bear. A nice piece on labor, economics, politics, and power. ~~~~~~~~ Labor unions effectively couple employees directly to paying customers – bargaining for the maximum amount they see consumers are willing to part with.  In the same light, non-union businesses sell the labor component of their products at the cheapest...

Why the index of leading indicators failed: examining the once in a lifetime post-pandemic tailwind  – by New Deal democrat Carl Quintanilla observed the one year anniversary of the following two days ago: I’ve written previously about what confounded that forecast. But let me highlight those issues again. 1. A 40% drop in gas prices, and a generalized 10% drop in commodity prices can do wonders for both producers and consumers. Here’s...

Good evening, hope all is well by you. Two days ago, my wife of 52 years took off to my oldest son’s home to visit and to meet my youngest son’s woman friend. We are very pleased with this and the story behind all of this is long and too enduring to be told here. However here is another story of a man and his family thriving in the US in his own business. The day before my wife went to Chicago, my neighbor Aldofo asked if we would attend...

The collapse of the existing home market continues in September  – by New Deal democrat September was yet another month in the ongoing collapse of existing home sales. To wit, sales declined another -8,000 on an annualized basis to 3.960 million. This is the lowest number since August 2010. And aside from that one singular month, it is the lowest since 1995! [Note that this is similar to the collapse in purchase mortgage applications, also at...

Obviously the only thing any reasonable person would do is point and laugh at the Republicans. I am not that reasonable person, so I will try to think of a solution. Obviously one very boring possibility is that the Republicans will finally get their act together and elect a speaker. This is the most likely outcome, but very far from optimal. The other possibility is that a speaker will be elected by a bipartisan majority like the majority...

This is a portion (1 of 6 observations) of a much longer Employer Healthcare Benefits article which would have been impossible to feature in entirety at AB. If I did so, much of it would probably go unread. I was interested in how much concern employees have about company healthcare insurance costs. In particular, I was looking at what employees thought about their plans and its affordability as show in chart 6. Costs, Inflation and Affordability...

Initial claims on the cusp of turning lower YoY  – by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims dropped below 200,000 last week for the first time since January, and not too far from the 50+ year low of 182,000 set in September one year ago. Specifically, they declined -13,000 to 198,000. The four-week average declined -1,000 to 205,750, the lowest since February. Contrarily, with the usual one-week lag, continuing claims rose 29,000 to 1.734...