Tag Archives: US/Global Economics

Steve Roth,  publisher of  Evonomics  and at Angry Bear,  sends this note and thematic list: Economics Doesn’t Have to Be Amoral The complexity economist Eric Beinhocker writes “economics has painted itself as a detached amoral science, but humans are moral creatures. We must bring morality back into the center of economics in order for people to relate to and trust it. All of the science shows that deeply ingrained, reciprocal moral behaviors are the...

 by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for May 11 – 15 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Noteworthy this week is that mortgage rates have fallen to new all-time lows, and mortgage applications, not coincidentally, have rebounded sharply. This is good news since housing normally leads the way in economic recoveries. This is an important positive for whenever the time comes that more normal life is able to safely resume. As...

Jobless claims show new damage ongoing, but some damage repaired Now that we have more than one month of data from initial and continuing jobless claims since the coronavirus lockdowns started, we can finally begin to trace whether the economic impacts of the virus are being contained, or are continuing to spread out into further damage. Eight weeks in, the answer is mixed. First, let’s look at initial jobless claims both seasonally adjusted (blue) and...

Coronavirus dashboard: updating the 52 Petri Dishes of democracy [Note: There is no significant economic data today (Dan here…May 13)  Thursday we’ll get initial claims, and on Friday retail sales and industrial production for April, both of which will be important] Here is the update through yesterday (May 12). I will restart giving the daily increase in infections if States that have “reopened” start to increase significantly again. The preliminary...

April deflation follows a typical recessionary pattern This morning’s consumer price index for April gives us our first indication of what the coronavirus recession has done to inflation. Overall consumer prices declined by -0.8% (blue), while consumer prices excluding energy (gas) declined -0.2% (red). Note that in 2015 when gas prices collapsed, prices otherwise continued to increase, showing the underlying strength of the economy. But in March and...

Reopening Isn’t Reopening—It’s Cutting Off Unemployment Donald Trump, cheering on his “warriors” who demand that states lift their lockdown and distancing orders (where they have them), would have you believe this is about bringing the economy back to life so ordinary people can get their jobs and normal lives back.  Elitist liberals who work from home and have country estates to retreat to don’t care, but “real” people do. The reality is different. ...

If you open it, they still won’t come: restaurant edition In case you haven’t already seen it, here is the OpenTable restaurant reservation data from 3 Confederate States that “reopened” their economy at the end of April: Even though restaurants were open again, reservations were still down over 80% from a year ago. This highlights an important behavioral aspect of the pandemic: people did not wait for their State governments to order lockdowns in...

Testing and the 52 Petri dishes of democracy Since the federal government has abandoned the field, fighting the coronavirus pandemic has been left to the States, territories, and the District of Columbia. This means that there is no unified response and instead there are 52+ individual responses. That is the biggest challenge in tracking the pandemic. Which means I’ve been looking for the best resources to show how the States are doing in comparison...

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What Is the Shape Of This Cycle As A Letter: V, L, W, J, U, Or Maybe A Lazy J or Wiggly W? For some time now it has become commonplace for people to describe business cycles by how they resemble one letter or another, although obviously this amounts to a lot of hand waving. But it does provide bright images.  Thus Trump and crew seem to believe that the US will experience a V recovery, one that will boom up as rapidly as it fell down, so the sooner we...