Tag Archives: US EConomics

The biggest driver of healthcare cost is simply “pricing” increases reflected in hospitals, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare insurance. It was Dr. Donald Berwick while head of Medicare and Medicaid during the 1st half of the Obama administration has said, repeatedly, that at least 1/3 of Medicare dollars ware wasted on unnecessary tests, procedures and drugs that provide no benefit for the patient. Here is Dr. Berwick again discussing healthcare...

Durable goods orders: more deceleration, still no recession  – by New Deal democrat I normally don’t pay too much attention to durable goods orders. That’s because they are very noisy. They don’t always turn down in advance of a recession (see 2007-08), although they may at least stall, and there are a number of false positives as well (see 2016) as shown in the graph below showing up until the pandemic: But in 2022 they were one of the last...

Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) made significant changes to the federal tax code. The major changes were the lowering corporate and individual income tax rates, increasing the standard deduction, reforming child tax benefits, and reforming the corporate international tax system. In an effort to mask its true cost and fit it within cost limits, almost all of the individual and estate tax provisions were set to expire after 2025. Several...

UE is the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America issuing a statement by its Executive Board. In case you are wondering, UE is responsible for transporting train crews. The membership is approximately 2,000. It is interesting to note, their claiming of pricing issues with the transportation of goods across the US. Typically, we see these costs passed along in the form of shortages and/or higher prices. UE is also calling...

Besides fishing for various in district Federal Judges to sponsor Paxton’s lawsuits against the Federal Government, there is Che Ted Cruz – a want-to-be. Student Loan Justice member Jacque Abron calling Ted Cruz out. ‘On student loans’, Letters To Editor, waxahachiesun.com, Jacque Abron at Student Loan Justice The fact that Texas legislators like Ted Cruz are opposing student loan cancellation makes no sense. The state is crushed under $141...

Weekly Indicators for February 20 – 24 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. While several of the important coincident indicators continue to hover just above neutrality, importantly neither long term Treasury yields nor corporate bond yields nor mortgage rates have made a new high in the past 4 months, and historically that has been significant. As usual, clicking over and reading will...

New home sales: a bright spot in the housing indicators  – by New Deal democrat New home sales are very noisy, and are heavily revised, which is why I pay more attention to single family housing permits. But they do have one important value: they are frequently the first housing indicator to turn at both tops and bottoms. And it increasingly looks like new home sales have already made their bottom for this cycle. In January they rose a...

I am late in posting “In-Box” due to other things going on at home. Talk of Healthcare? I fractured a tooth. It now has to be replaced with a bridge. I did not like the idea of a Sears Best drilling a hole in my jaw-bone for a stud to mount a tooth. Next up an eye operation which Medicare will cover. Then down to the VA to make contact again. This week there were a lot of interesting subjects to read. So many of them, I could double the length of...

Strong upward revisions push real personal income to new highs, put 2 important coincident indicators firmly in expansion territory  – by New Deal democrat Almost all of the news in this morning’s release for personal income and spending for January was positive. Nominally, personal income rose +0.6% and personal spending rose 1.8%. The deflator also rose +0.6%, making real personal income close to unchanged, and real spending (after...

Perfect follow-up to Dean’s earlier commentary “Declining population and diminished national power is bad news?” which I also posted at Angry Bear. In Dean’s earlier commentary, he makes a point of declining population not being a big issue. Decreasing productivity would be a far bigger issue except it is not an issue in the US. The numbers of older people are increasing in the US. As Dean points out, “If wage growth moves in step with productivity...