Tag Archives: US EConomics

Flying became more expensive. The last time we flew and whether I was American Advantage or not, there still was a fee to check bags. So we checked our bags outside of the terminal as it was easier and less expensive. There was never a fee outside of the terminal. Now there was. Once American put it into play, they started to charge. It was not a big deal to us. Overall, the airlines have a monopoly. And can get away with egregious actions. If one...

 – by New Deal democrat My “quick and dirty” economic status indicator is the stock market (still making new all-time highs) and initial jobless claims, which are also still positive for the economy despite being in an apparent uptrend. Last week initial claims rose 8,000 to 229,000, their second highest level in the past 9 months. The four-week moving average declined -750 to 222,250, just below its own 9 month high of the week prior. With the...

– by New Deal democrat I never used to pay much attention to the ISM non-manufacturing report. That is partly because it only has a 20 year history, and partly because it seems to be more coincident than leading: But because manufacturing has faded so much as a share of the US economy, with at least two false recession signal in the past 10 years (2015-16 and 2022-23): there is no choice but to pay more attention. In particular, it...

In which I read Paul Krugman, & once again find myself arguing myself into believing that the Federal Reserve ought to have spent this spring cutting interest rates . . . by Brad Delong Grasping Reality Newsletter AB: I receive some of Brad DeLong’s commentaries in my inbox. I read them and have not posted them because I feel guilty for doing so. The commentary (which includes Paul Krugman) if read carefully agrees with what some of us...

 – by New Deal democrat I’ll write about today’s ISM non-manufacturing report later, but first I wanted to follow up with several more graphs based on yesterday’s JOLTS labor report for April. Basically, I didn’t want to leave the impression that the labor market was in any way sub-par based on those numbers. With that in mind, below are two graphs. Both show the entire history of hires (red) and quits (gold) normed to 100 as of the yesterday’s...

I have been shrinking this total report through editing so as to make it easier to read in a shorter amount of time. It is also split into three parts to minimize the size of the read also. To me, it is pretty interesting as there have been discussion about how the CBO and other agencies such as Social Security and the Census reach their conclusions. For you, it might be boring. Just attempting to promote better understanding. ~~~~~~~~ The...

 – by New Deal democrat The JOLTS report for April showed most metrics rebounding slightly from March lows, with the exception of the “soft data” job openings. The overall picture is that hiring is weak relative to the past five years, but so are layoffs, and voluntary quits are equally relatively strong, balancing them out. To wit: job openings (blue in the graph below), a soft statistic that is polluted by imaginary, permanent, and trolling...

In a rebuke to the standard economic model that demand drives supply, housing prices in the US these days continue to rise. How much of this is due to local regulation vs cost of new home construction is above my pay grade. But the claim is that 3D printed homes can mitigate shortages in affordable new home construction:“Dozens of 3D-printed homes have been built across the world – to house a family in the US state of Virginia or members of an...

The Demographic Outlook: 2024 to 2054, Congressional Budget Office, January 2024 A difference approach to determining the population, the resulting projections, and outcomes as determined by the Congressional Budget Office. The Congressional Budget Office is describing its population projections, which underlie the agency’s baseline budget projections and economic forecast that have been published in already. This report provides the foundation...

 – by New Deal democrat As usual, the month starts out with important data on manufacturing and construction. The news was mixed this month and weighted more to the downside in my opinion. First, the ISM report on manufacturing declined again slightly to 48.7. This is the second month in a row that this index has been under the equipoise point of 50. More importantly, the more leading new orders subindex declined sharply to 45.4, the lowest...