Tag Archives: US/Global Economics

Notes on the June JOLTS report: weakness but no imminent downturn I’m still on vacation, so continue to expect light posting. But I thought I’d take a look at the one piece of data that came out this week, the June JOLTS report. First of all, the “hiring leads firing” mantra continues to be true: [Note: data averaged quarterly to cut down on noise.] Interesting that hiring has been essentially flat for a full year, and total separations (“firing”) for...

Krugman on Trump and Trade: Not Tariffic I’m no fan of the Trump tariff tantrum, but weak criticism of it does no one a service.  And while I agree with Paul Krugman on a lot of things, he has a long history of being misguided on trade policy.  Alas, his op-ed in today’s New York Times continues the legacy of the Bad Krugman, not the good one. Before getting to the theoretical meat, let’s take a moment to observe the holes in his argument that should...

Note how the survey data is weakening more than the payroll data The survey data tends to lead the payroll: In 2019 payroll employment —  what Wall Street pays attention to –is the weakest since 2012. Moreover, hours worked has flattened out: Finally, average hourly wage growth is also weak.

Scenes from the July employment report First things first: I’m on a vacation for part of this week, so don’t be surprised if there are no postings for a few days. The July employment report continued a string of good headline numbers with weak leading internals. Let’s take a look. In the good news department, the U6 underemployment rate declined to yet another new expansion low of 7.0%. This is mainly due to the continuing decline in the involuntarily...

This post will be especially confused. I am thinking about cash bail and how it is unacceptable that richer people have more liberty than poorer people. For some reason my thoughts turned to Jeffrey Epstein currently held without bail, because of course. Now he hasn’t been convicted yet, and I do support the 5th and 6th amendments, so I have a problem. I will try to solve the problem. I’m going to start with Hobbes, Locke, Mill and Nozick (which one...

The housing choke collar I have a new post up at Seeking Alpha, discussing how, even though sales went down last year, and have already bottomed, house prices have as usual, followed into decline with a lag. Beyond that, I discuss the concept of a “housing choke collar,’ similar to the “oil choke collar” I used to write about in 2010-14, whereby prices repeatedly approach the tipping point of unaffordability, causing sales to drop off, causing interest...

June 2019 personal income and spending The wage-earner/consumer remains in decent shape, and a lack of inflation (continued low gas prices!) continues to be able to hide a multitude of sins. That’s the message from this morning’s June report for personal income and spending. Nominally, income rose +0.4%, while spending rose +0.3%. Since inflation as measured by the PCE price index only increased 0.1%, that means both real income and real spending rose...

A Serious Problem For Dems It is that progressive Dems some time ago glommed onto the idea that protectionism is “progressive.”  It has been going on so long and has become so ingrained that Bernie Sanders has been running around bragging about how he is more protectionist than Trump.  Elizabeth Warren has been a bit more subtle about it, calling to renegotiate all existing US trade agreements to make them super strong on labor and environmental...

Barro’s Misstated Case for Federal Reserve Independence I guess I should applaud Robert Barro for standing up for the independence of the Federal Reserve and hoping it can resist political pressure to lower interest rates too much. But there are two aspects of his case that strike me as silly to say the least starting with his opening sentence: In the early 1980s, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, was able to choke off runaway...

Trump’s trade wars can still lead to a producer led recession I wrote a piece last week for Seeking Alpha explaining that, while the consumer side of the economy is doing reasonably well, a recession could still come in via the producer side. A Producer-Led Recession Remains Viable As usual, clicking over and reading should be educational for you, and puts a penny or two in my pocket. Thus, the idea that no recession can happen absent a 20% YoY slide in...