Tag Archives: US EConomics

A few years back, my chairman was a big enthusiast of NFTs (nonfungible tokens). In one conversation I recall, I pointed to a picture of the founding chair of the department and suggested he could digitize it and sell it to alumni as an NFT. He said he thought that was a good idea. When I laughed, he said “I’m not joking.” I replied: “That’s what I’m afraid of.”NFTs have always been an example of The Greater Fool Theory of investing, which holds that...

The long awaited downturn in multi-family construction may finally have happened  – by New Deal democrat With the relative fading of manufacturing in importance to the US economy, the leading construction sector has assumed even greater importance. And the most important data about construction are the leading, and long leading, data about residential housing construction. To give a little additional framework, typically the first data to...

The 2 big reasons (one obvious, one subtle) why real median household income declined in 2022  – by New Deal democrat Last week, with its usual very big lag, median household income was reported by the Census Bureau for 2022. If, given big wage gains and hiring in 2022, you were expecting a significant increase, well, that didn’t happen. Instead, real median household income declined -2.3% from $76,330 in 2021 to $74,580: Unsurprisingly,...

Simple commentary. Just started to receive information on increases. Gasoline is a no brainer. We drive a fuel efficient vehicle and do five over as opposed to what others do. It is interesting to hear the complaints. Thirty-gallon gasoline tank plus fast driving and you are getting into some serious money. You can only tell them if they will listen. Most will not and get belligerent. Saudi Arabia and Russia have agreed to extend their voluntary...

Weekly Indicators for September 11 – 15 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The only significant change in any metric is that manufacturing, as measured by the average of the new orders sub-indexes of the regional Feds’ monthly reports is on the very cusp of improving from negative to neutral, due to a big improvement in the New York region. That improvement probably reflects the...

Has industrial production, the King of Coincident Indicators, been dethroned?  – by New Deal democrat Industrial production in the post-WW2 era was the King of Coincident Indicators. In the past 20 years, it may have been dethroned. To wit, in August production increased 0.4% to a new post-pandemic high, but only 0.1% above its previous high last September. Meanwhile manufacturing production also increased, by 0.1%, but is still -0.9% below...

Too Big, too Loud, and Too fast appears to be the thing these days. Either they are jacked up squatting, large tired, multiple rear tires, altered mufflered, adjusted emission control to emit soot from acceleration, etc. Anything to gain attention for those who probably never received such while growing up. As children, we all had our favorite displays of machoism and then we grew up. Other things became more important than the vehicle we drove....

Real retail sales continue to be weak; continue to forecast weakening jobs reports  – by New Deal democrat As usual, retail sales is one of my favorite metrics because it tells us so much about the consumer and, indirectly, the labor market and the total economy. Nominally, retail sales rose 0.6% in August. So did consumer inflation, and the difference rounded to -0.1% for the month. Here’s what the past 2.5 years since the 2021 stimulus...

The economic tailwind from falling commodity prices has likely ended  – by New Deal democrat [Note: I’ll post on the August retail sales report later today.] Two days ago in my PPI and CPI overview, I wrote; “I am most interested in whether the producer price report tells us that the big decline in commodity prices is over. There have only been two increases in commodity prices in the past 12 months [ ] I suspect we’ll get #3 [on...

The deep roots of the UAW’s current dissatisfaction share much with those taking labor actions to fight back after decades of rising inequality: The pay of typical workers has lagged far behind more-privileged actors in our economy, and the reason for this growing inequality is an erosion of workers’ leverage and bargaining power in labor markets. Open Thread September 9, 2023 Where do Americans mingle the most? Angry Bear....