Tag Archives: US/Global Economics

Wages continued to improve through January One item I didn’t get around to in the last couple of weeks is how wages performed as of January’s jobs report. And the basic answer is: pretty good! The first graph below shows real, inflation adjusted average wage gains for non-managerial workers measured YoY: As of January they were up +1.9%. This is the best showing except for a few months in 2015. As Jared Bernstein has shown, the “real” gains in wages...

It’s Presidents Day, and we’re still basically flying blind on the eoncomy Not only are the markets closed today for President’s Day, but this entire week is about the emptiest I can ever recall for economic data. Literally the only data of note is going to be released on Thursday, and except for weekly jobless claims, even that is not what I would generally consider first-order metrics. Even worse, we are still basically flying blind due to the...

More signs of a slowdown: initial claims and real retail sales We got two negative data points. One is cause for concern; the other – not quite yet. Let me start with the “not yet” first. Initial jobless claims rose 4,000 to 239,000. That means that the 4 week moving average rose to 231,750: This means that the number is both higher YoY, and 12.5% above its 206,000 low in September. Ordinarily that would be cause for concern. BUT, the biggest factor in...

Amazon defeated in New York UPDATED In the biggest ever defeat for a subsidized project in history, Amazon announcedFebruary 14th that it was canceling its planned half of HQ2 for New York City, which was to receive subsidies worth at least $3.133 billion. After facing months of public opposition, the company provided a Valentine’s Day present in the form of capitulation. Amazon showed that, like Electrolux, its efforts to extract maximum subsidies from...

Who Is Really A Socialist? Here are some varieties of “socialism:” command socialism, market socialism, socialist market economy, social democracy, democratic socialism, right wing socialism, utopian socialism, corporate socialism, just plain vanilla socialism.  Here are some people who have claimed to be socialist, some of them selecting one or another of these types, but some just keeping it plain vanilla generic: Kim Jong-Un, Xi Jinping, Stefan...

Amazon defeated in New York; more to come In the biggest ever defeat for a subsidized project in history, Amazon announcedyesterday that it was canceling its planned half of HQ2 for New York City, which was to receive subsidies worth at least $3.133 billion. After facing months of public opposition, the company provided a Valentine’s Day present in the form of capitulation. Amazon showed that, like Electrolux, its efforts to extract maximum subsidies...

Electrolux closing Memphis plant; Economic development malpractice leaves Tennesse holding the bag On January 31, Electrolux announced (h/t Alan Freeman, ipolitics.ca) that it would be closing its new (2012) factory in Memphis, Tennessee, by the end of 2020. This facility, you may recall, was a subsidized relocation from L’Assomption, Quebec (a Montreal suburb) that had an aid intensity of at least 99%! Yes, Tennessee state and local governments gave...

by New Deal democrat What does a “Recession Watch” mean? On Wednesday I went on “Recession Watch” beginning Q4 of this year. Yesterday I explained what that means in detail over at Seeking Alpha. So, what happens after this? If the weakness persists and spreads to the short leading indicators, the “watch” turns into a.warning. If the weakness abates without spreading into the short leading indicators, the “watch” is lifted. As always, I will be...

December JOLTS report: mixed but with strong positive revisions The JOLTS report on labor is noteworthy and helpful because it breaks down the jobs market into a more granular look at hiring, firing, and voluntary quits. Its drawback is that the data only goes back less than 20 years, so from the point of view of looking at the economic cycle, it has to be taken with a large dose of salt. With that disclaimer out of the way, Tuesday’s JOLTS report for...

This is an exiting day. I disagree with something Paul Krugman wrote. In 2017, private insurance paid about a third of America’s medical bills — $1.2 trillion, or 6 percent of GDP. Having the government pay those bills directly, without a revenue offset, would therefore be a spending increase — a fiscal stimulus — of 6 percent of GDP. Suppose — as MMTers tend to assume — that interest rates nonetheless didn’t rise. Then this stimulus would have a...