Tag Archives: US/Global Economics

Economy still expanding, but with retail consumption outpacing production This morning saw two important releases of October data: industrial production and retail sales. Both showed continued strength. Industrial production is the King of Coincident Indicators, and more than any other metric typically shows whether the overall economy is expanding or contracting. In October it increased by 1.1%, while manufacturing production increased by 1.0%. The...

Will President Biden Scrap GILTI? Congratulations to Brad Setser for being selected to be the Agency Review Team for the Office of the United States Trade Representative. I’m curious, however, as to his views on certain aspects of President Elect’s proposals with respect to corporate taxation. There were lots to criticize as to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Conservative economists were correct to note that it made corporation taxation more complicated....

Lack of inflation in September consistent with weak demand; real wages increase, but will the pandemic derail the gains? Consumer prices were unchanged in October, both on a seasonally adjusted and unadjusted basis: But while the lack of inflation is good news in isolation, the last two months can also be viewed as a sign of economic weakness – lack of demand – from a recession. Digging a little deeper, for the past 40 years, recessions had...

New and continued jobless claims: best week of the pandemic; can it survive a new emergency? This week’s new and continued jobless claims, both seasonally adjusted and unadjusted, declined to new pandemic lows – but at levels roughly equivalent to their worst readings during the Great Recession. On an unadjusted basis, new jobless claims declined by 20,799 to 723,105. Seasonally adjusted claims declined by 48,000 to 709,000. The 4-week moving average...

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for November 9 – 13 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. With Joe Biden assuming the Presidency on January 20, and an announcement of a successful vaccine by Pfizer that should be available by next spring or summer, the short and long leading indicators should once again be giving their usual signals for next year. And we have a pretty good idea of what that means… As usual, clicking...

September JOLTS report shows jobs recovery has been real – but will it continue? Yesterday’s (Nov. 10)  JOLTS report for September showed a jobs market that continues to be, ever so slowly, on the mend. Openings and quits were up (good), and layoffs and discharges were down (also good). The only negative was that hires actually declined, although slightly. We are far enough past the worst of the pandemic jobs losses that it is worthwhile to compare the...

by Joseph Joyce 2020 “Globie”: The Carry Trade It is time to announce the recipient of this year’s “Globie”, i.e., the Globalization Book of the Year. The award gives me a chance to draw attention to a book that is particularly insightful about some aspect of globalization. This year’s winner is The Rise of Carry: The Dangerous Consequences of Volatility Suppression and the New Financial Order of Decaying Growth and Recurring Crisis by Tim Lee, Jamie...

Dan here: I received this note from Spencer’s son Matt late afternoon yesterday. Thank you Matt for the note. I knew Spencer as an economist who had a fact-based analysis of industry trends and a direct and clear way of demonstrating and describing a point to the discussion for over a decade. 2011 provides an example. Dean Baker noticed at times. I cannot find Paul Krugman’s mention but here is part of the year 2013. Matt Spencer sent this note about his...

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for November 2 – 6 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. With the almost certain election of Joe Biden to the Presidency, we can expect a much more organized and effective Federal response to the pandemic beginning on January 20. If the pandemic is brought under control by spring sometime (and maybe a vaccine becomes available), the ordinary function of the leading economic indicators...

October jobs report: extremely strong monthly gains overall, but at this rate still another 18 months from full jobs recovery HEADLINES: 638,000 million jobs gained. The gains since May total about 55% of the 22.1 million job losses in March and April. The alternate, and more volatile measure in the household report was 2,243,000 jobs gained, which factors into the unemployment and underemployment rates below. U3 unemployment rate declined -1.0% from 7.9%...