Tag Archives: US/Global Economics

Big decline in new jobless claims continues, while decline in continuing claims has stalled New jobless claims continue to be the most important weekly economic datapoint, as increasing numbers of vaccinated people and outdoor activities have led to an abatement of the pandemic – both new infections and deaths are near their lowest points in a year.  We have hit my objective for new claims to be under 500,000 by Memorial Day. My second...

April housing permits and starts: a pullback from peak, but no recessionary signal UPDATED The monthly statistics on housing permits and starts, reported this morning, were mixed, as permits increased slightly and starts declined: The less volatile single-family permits also declined slightly. On the one hand, a high level of construction activity is continuing. But the three-month moving average of both single-family and total...

Coronavirus dashboard: entering the home stretch? G*d willing, I will only feel the need to update this information for another month or two. The US is simply making great progress on all fronts, and there are no new outbreaks in any of the States. Close to 40% of the entire US population is totally vaccinated, and almost 50% has received at least one dose: As a result, both cases and deaths are lower than their troughs last summer,...

Hear that China is in trouble with an aging, decreasing population. Headline says that California is in trouble; decreasing population for the first time ever. Years ago now, we heard that Japan was in trouble with an aging, decreasing population. Japan’s doing fine, thank you. And, China and California will both be better off for the decrease. More is not always better. We know where they are coming from with this stuff. They bought into the old...

April’s consumer and producer prices, retail sales, and industrial production; March business inventories and JOLTS, Commenter RJS, Market Watch 666 Producer Prices rose 0.6% in April on Higher Wholesale Food Prices, Wider Margins for Transportation Services The seasonally adjusted Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand rose 0.6% in March, as prices for both finished wholesale goods and margins of final services providers rose 0.6%. That...

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New jobless claims continue to improve, while continuing claims concerningly stall New jobless claims continue to be the most important weekly economic datapoint, as increasing numbers of vaccinated people and outdoor activities have led to an abatement of the pandemic – both new infections and deaths are near their lowest points in a year.  We have hit my objective for new claims to be under 500,000 by Memorial Day. My second objective is...

April retail sales “disappoint,” but maintain almost all of March’s surge [Note: I’ll comment on industrial production in a separate post later]At first glance, April’s retail sales report looks like another Big Miss. Nominally (blue) sales increased less than 0.1% (rounded to unchanged). Adjusted for inflation (red), they declined -0.7%: But the important point is that the big jump in March didn’t get taken back.  As I wrote last month:...

For just a pocketful of Russia’s rubles, Putin facilitated Brexit, doing irreparable harm to the UK and the EU. With what was left over, he did enormous harm to the US, and weakened NATO. No shots were fired, no missiles were launched, and no missions were flown. No weapons that go bang were deployed, and not a single Russian boot trod foreign soil. Putin did more damage with that pocketful of change than his army could have ever done. Yet, the...

Weekly Indicators for May 10 – 14 at Seeking Alpha  by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The big news in this past week, even though it has been expected for several months, was on the inflation front. That doesn’t affect the nowcast, and hasn’t affected the short term forecast yet. The long term forecast continues to be buffetted by increased interest rates. In my commentary this week, I make reference...