Tag Archives: US/Global Economics

When the stock market headlines the political blogs . . . Here is a graph I saw on Digby’s blog this morning: There was also a highly-recommended, heavily-commented piece at Daily Kos. Here’s a pro tip: when you see a daily stock market move leading the political blogs, it’s a sign of a bottom, not a  top. That’s because it’s a sign of emotion, and it means that amateurs are paying close attention. By the time that happens, the big move is over,...

A follow-up on the reasons for prime age labor force non-participation Here is something interesting I found in an article by staffers at the Kansas City Fed a couple of weeks ago. They broke down the 25-54 prime age labor force participation group for men into 10 year slices, by education, and by reason for not participating in the labor force. They focused on men, because including women confounds the results by the secular societal change whereby...

An update on yield curve dynamics So I submitted this wonderful piece to Seeking Alpha Tuesday morning, and figured I would just link to it today. But as in the best laid plans of mice and men, somehow it reverted to a draft without ever being reviewed by the site’s editors, which means it isn’t up there yet and there is no big economic news today. Sigh.  So in the meantime, consider this …. The bond market is behaving in totally typical fashion in...

“The Opportunity Cost of Socialism” Why is the Council of Economic Advisers producing party political propaganda for the GOP? As many folks have pointed out, the “report” is rather bizarre. My favorite part is Figure 1, which summarizes Milton Friedman’s argument that people spending “their own money” are “more careful how much to spend and on what the money is spent.” This, of course begs the question of how that money came to be defined as “their...

New home sales bombed in September Needless to say, this morning’s report on new home sales was another big miss in the housing sector. Not only were sales a new 12 month low, they were the lowest in nearly 2 years, and are off over -150,000 from their peak 10 months ago: Typically new home sales are down about -200,000 when a recession starts. That median prices have fallen in sync with sales, and not with their typical lag: makes me...

September existing home sales: yet another poor housing report While existing home sales are roughly 90% of the entire housing market, they are much less important as an economic indicator because they do not have the knock-on effects of construction improvements, and less of the landscaping and indoor improvements, that new homes do. But they certainly do help us track the trend. And like housing permits and starts, and new home sales, the trend has...

Kevin Hassett and Irwin Steltzer Join in on the Fiscal Dishonesty Brad DeLong is annoyed at the latest from Irwin Stelzer: Hassett and others in the administration point out that despite a hefty reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, government revenues rose by $3.3 trillion in the fiscal year just ended. In part this is because the economy is growing at around a 4 percent rate in response to the tax cuts and to a revival of...

September JOLTS report: a jobs market moving from thriving to hot Tuesday’s JOLTS report once again confirmed the very good employment report from one month ago, with two series making all-time highs and one an expansion high: Quits ust below their all-time high set one month ago Hires made a new all-time high Total separations made another new expansion high Layoffs and discharges spiked back to average levels for this expansion Job openings made yet...

Jargon is a heck of a drug: If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. The discourse of global warming/climate change is lousy with jargon. This rampant obfuscation gives science deniers rhetorical leverage and induces hallucinations about “Green New Deals” and “Environmental Kuznets Curves.” “Decoupling,” “rebound...

Tracking Trump’s tariffs: US vs. Canadian rail loads Let me start out by saying that there is an excellent case for the US imposing a VAT (“value added tax”) similar to those enacted by Canada and European countries in order to recapture the losses due to far lower wages in China and other developing countries. Additionally there is an excellent national security rationale for not entering into”free trade” agreements with authoritarian governments who...