Tag Archives: US/Global Economics

This is a somewhat late 10th anniversary of the Lehman failure post. I am not going to write much that is new, but will restate an argument I have been making for years (following John Quiggin and Miles Kimball). It is trivially easy for the US Treasury (and other treasuries) to make huge profits on the carry trade. These huge profits are, I claim, actual wealth created by the operation. In general, the argument is that, over all recorded long time...

Scenes from the September jobs report Leaving aside wages, there was lots of sunshine in September’s jobs report, although there were a few gray if not dark clouds on the horizon.  Here’s a look at each: 1. Weekly jobless claims did lead the unemployment rate Two weeks ago, I wrote that the new 40+ year lows in weekly initial jobless claims forecast new lows in the unemployment rate.  Here’s what I said: [I]nitial jobless claims tend to lead the...

Nobel Prizes in Economics, Awarded and Withheld Most of the commentary today on the decision to award Nobel prizes in economics to William Nordhaus and Paul Romer has focused on the recipients.  I want to talk about the nonrecipient whose nonprize is perhaps the most important statement by the Riksbank, the Swedish central bank that decides who should be recognized each year for their work in economics “in memory of Alfred Nobel”. Nordhaus was widely...

by Josepth Joyce The Continuing Dominance of the Dollar Ten years after the global financial crisis, we are still coming to an understanding of how profound a shock it was. The changes in political alignments within and across nations and the diminished public support for globalization continue. But one aspect of the financial system has not changed: the dominance of the U.S. dollar in the monetary system. An article by Fernando Eguren Martin, Mayukh...

I try to avoid forcasting, but I confidently forecast that, in the future, I will continue to try and try to find cases on which I disagree with Paul Krugman. In The Economic Future Isn’t What It Used to Be (Wonkish) Krugman notes that forecasts of potential output of the US and the EU are now far below what they were in 2008. He argues that this probably shows a genuine long run damaging effect of the great recession (following Ball,Fatas, & Summers...

Weekly Indicators for October 1 – 5 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Unsurprisingly, the big story this week was the jump in interest rates. As always, clicking on the link and reading the post is not only informative, but helps put a little cash in my wallet.

September jobs report: a mixed report with different implications in different timeframes HEADLINES: +134,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate declined -0.2% from 3.9% to 3.7% U6 underemployment rate rose from 7.4% to 7.5% Here are the headlines on wages and the broader measures of underemployment: Wages and participation rates Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now:  declined -152,000 from 5.379 million to 5.237 million Part time for economic reasons:...

The simple Fed funds + payrolls leading indicator: autumn update While we are waiting for tomorrow’s jobs report, let me update my alternative Fed funds + payrolls leading indicator for the economy, which I debuted earlier this year. This was the result of looking for an interest rate indicator that did not rely upon the yield curve. This indicator is really simple, and what it predicts is, if the Fed fate rises YoY by as much as the YoY% change in jobs...

September auto sales were the worst (economic reporting) in a long time I don’t think I have seen as badly, or worse, outright misleading reporting in a long time as I have seen concerning September auto sales. Almost all of the stories — and especially the Doomish punditry that dominates the clickbait econoblogosphere — have seized on the BIG BIG DOWNTURN!!! in auto sales YoY, varying between a -5.6% decline (“So, all in all it was a lousy month”) to...

by New Deal democrat August residential construction spending declines Yesterday construction spending for August was reported. While overall spending rose very slightly, residential construction fell -0.7%. The big issue with housing this year is whether higher mortgage rates and higher prices are leading merely to a deceleration of growth, or to an actual turning point.  Yesterday’s report adds to the evidence that it is the latter rather than the...