Tag Archives: US/Global Economics

Favoring Hi-Tech Tax Cheats Over Consumers of French Wine Hoping to buy a nice bottle of French wine? Doug Palmer of Poltico has some bad news for you: The Trump administration announced Friday a 25 percent tariff on $1.3 billion worth of French handbags, cosmetics and soaps in retaliation for a digital services tax on U.S. internet giants, but said it would suspend imposing them for up to six months. The United States believes the way the French tax is...

Death Comes To My Old Economics Department That would be the one at my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  I have learned that on July 6 one of its current members died, Bill Sandholm, an excellent evolutionary game theorist who was about 50 years old.  It is a sign of my age that he always seemed quite young to me, barely older than my oldest daughter, and now he is dead.  He was a very nice guy, aside from being a very capable economist...

It’s the Economy by Ken Melvin Ask any group of people who have successfully started a small business and to a person, they will tell you that there had been at least once when it could have gone either way. Eight out of ten fail in those perilous first two years. No doubt some of the 80% made fatal mistakes, but how many of them did everything right and still failed? Some of the 20% made what could have been fatal mistakes yet came out smelling like a...

June data starts out with a bright spot in manufacturing Earlier this week the last of the regional Fed Districts, Dallas, reported their manufacturing indexes for June. The overall picture has been a strong rebound: Regional Fed New Orders Indexes (*indicates report this week)  Empire State up +41.8 to -0.6 Philly up +42.4 to +16.7 Richmond up +30 to +5 Kansas City  up +32 to +7 *Dallas up +33.5 to +2.9 On a month over month basis, the average is up +36...

Wildly Off Forecasts? The macroeconomic forecasting business has become quite unhinged in the current situation, with existing models seeming to have their wheels coming off as old relationships simply do not hold and reported data seems unreliable and going in all sorts of directions.  We have already seen this happen regarding forecasts that were made for the May employment numbers, with most forecasters projecting employment declines that would have...

Coronavirus dashboard for June 29: renewed exponential growth in infections, decline in deaths has stalled Total US infections: 2,549,069,  42,161 in last day Total US deaths: 125,803,  273 in last day Here is the regional breakdown of the 7 day average of new cases per capita: There is renewed exponential growth in the South and West. The Midwest also is beginning to look bad. Also, here is some more evidence that, when you recklessly reopen, and...

(Dan here…David offers a different sort of presentation from the normal for AB. Interesting?…) I’m going on vacation for a few weeks, so I am interrupting my normal blogging for something different. (I’m not sure if you — or anyone — is interested in my Marshall 2020 Project posts, but I’m doing it for myself — and its a good distraction from every day crazy ? Anyways… I’d love to answer your questions about coronavirus, elections, jobs, trade, the...

Coronavirus dashboard for June 27: infections -> hospitalizations -> deaths Total US infections: 2,480,786,  44,373 new cases Total US deaths: 125,120,  619 new deathsA quandary over the past month has been why deaths declined so much more than new cases, while cases were declining; and more recently why deaths have continued to decline in the face of soaring new infections.Is it because of better treatments? Changing demographics – e.g., fewer...

Via the Boston Globe  comes the consideration of boundary problems this pandemic poses between US states. Worth a discussion. Also, on the world stage, the EU and other countries consider relaxing travel restrictions from ‘safe’ countries, the US not among them. Visitor quarantines may seem like a smart intervention to keep the virus from crossing state lines. Symptoms can take up to 14 days to appear after someone is infected, and research suggests...

All 4 coincident indicators of recession improved in May vs. April With this morning’s release of personal income and spending, we now have all 4 coincident indicators for May that the NBER uses to determine whether the economy is in a recession or recovery/expansion. And all 4 improved from their “most horrible” readings in April. A recession is a generalized downturn in production, employment, sales, and income. The “income” metric that the NBER uses...