Tag Archives: US/Global Economics

RJS; MarketWatch 666, Covered here is everything having a major price change. This includes the 2.4% increase in the price index for men’s underwear, the 3.8% increase in the price index for women’s underwear, and also prices for what are now more than 40 items having a double-digit year over year increase. CPI Rose 0.8% in February on Higher Prices for Food, Fuel, Clothing, Appliances, Rent, Insurance, & Airfare; Annual Inflation at a 40 Year...

Another big increase in consumer prices in February, as the yield curve tightens Consumer prices increased 0.8% in January, the fourth time in five months that it has exceeded 0.5%. YoY inflation is now 7.9%, the highest rate since 1982. My favorite measure, CPI ex energy, is also up 6.6% YoY, the worst since the 1981-82 recession as well: My rationale for tracking CPI ex-energy is that, unless energy costs filter through into the...

RJS, Focus on Fracking, Oil jumps $15 to a 13½ year high, then tumbles $21; natural gas supplies now 16% below normal Oil prices fell for just the second time since November this week, but not before jumping nearly $15 to a new 13½ year high before the market even opened for the week . . . after rising 26.3% to a 13½ year high of $115.68 a barrel last week after much of Russia’s oil was sanctioned or eschewed by the market, the contract price for...

Misunderstanding of Climate Change and Why it Matters: The Energy Price Spike The Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered a spike in oil and gas prices worldwide.  A natural response is for countries with untapped reserves to expand production as quickly as possible, but doesn’t this contradict the pledges they have also made to combat climate change?  This issue is covered at some length in a New York Times article today, and the entire...

JOLTS report for January: the game of employment musical chairs continues The Census Bureau JOLTS report for January, released this morning, indicates that the jobs market continues to be nowhere near equilibrium – which continues to be a good thing for workers’ wages.   Several months ago I introduced the idea of a game similar to musical chairs, where employers added or took away chairs, and employees tried to best allocate themselves...

RJS, MarketWatch 666, including estimates on the hit to GDP . . . the December deficit was revised up to what would have been a record high at the same time. US Trade Deficit Rose 9.4% to a Record High in January After December Deficit Revised Higher Our trade deficit rose 9.4% in January, as the value of our exports decreased while the value of our imports increased . . . the Commerce Dept report on our international trade in goods and...

Selling Mrs. Conspicuous Consumption In Selling Mrs. Consumer, Christine Frederick shilled for progressive obsolescence, which had been advocated the previous year in an article by her husband, J. George Frederick. Or at least that is the way it seemed to her biographer, Janice Rutherford, who wrote, “she now took up and elaborated upon his theme, even using the same words…”  Even using the same words?! It is possible that Mrs. Frederick copied...

The good folks over at the National Weather Service have posted that La Nina, the ENSO negative Pacific Ocean pattern is here to stay for a threepeat. What this typically means for us in the US is that we are looking at drought. More drought. From the Texas South to the Dakota’s. This also means more rainfall in northern spots, flooding in the Ohio River Valley, much like we saw in Tennessee last year, and an uptick in hurricane activity coming...

RJS, Focus on Fracking, The Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration for the week ending March 4th indicated that even after a big drop in our oil exports and an increase in our oil imports, we had to pull oil out of our stored commercial crude supplies for the eleventh time in 15 weeks and for the 27th time in the past forty-one weeks because of a big increase in demand that...

The Iran Nuclear Deal And The Ukraine Invasion  At New Year’s I disagreed with forecasts made by David Ignatius that Putin would fully invade Ukraine and that the JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran would be revived. I have been proven wrong on the first matter already. As of a week or more ago, it looked like I would be about the second as well as reports had a revived deal nearly made, which I would like to see. But now it looks like it may fall...