Last week CEO Vivek claimed most of his text messages were automatically deleted. Also and previously investigators were show messages going back and forth between players in this issue. Investigators asked those messages be kept. Apparently, those too have disappeared or portions of them have. It appears Albertsons has been milked by private entities Cerberus and Apollo who have been taking portions of equity out of Albertsons. In which case...

 – by New Deal democrat Recently I have paid much more attention to the ISM services index. That’s because, since the turn of the Millennium, manufacturing’s share of the economy has contracted to the point where even a significant decline in that index has not translated into an economy-wide recession, as for example in 2015-16.  When we use an economically weighted average of the non-manufacturing index (75%) with the manufacturing index...

The Phillips curve plays a central role in the policy debate (this is partly due to the fact that debaters have finally learned to ignore very highly theoretical and unrealistic DSGE models).  Just to review, the Phillips curve should show a negative relationship between unemployment and actual inflation minus expected inflation (it has been defined this way since 1960) The point where inflation is equal to expected inflation is called the...

A soft landing (disinflation without a recession) looks possible.  Also the remaining threat is the FED’s sticking with high interest rates, even though inflation is at a very reasonable level. I personally publicly and will almost certainly decline even if unemployment remains low. The change can be predicted, because the US index includes owner equivalent rent, a price which no one pays which is a calculation of how much homeowners would pay if...

The USA cannot borrow dollars unless the dollars are put there first. 

Private Debt Feeds Economic Collapse.

 – by New Deal democrat The weekly news from jobless claims continues to be good. The hypotheses that the summer increase was unresolved post-pandemic seasonality, plus the several week spike post-Beryl was all about Texas, both have held up very well. And that has continued to be the case against more challenging YoY comparisons as the data heads into September. Initial claims declined -5,000 last week to 227,000. The four week moving average...

Quantitative easing has worsened inequality. Think of it like pouring water into a glass. If the glass is already full, the water spills over. The wealthy hold most of the glass. They benefit from the overflow. The rest of us? We’re left with dry cups. This isn’t just a metaphor; it’s reality. When central banks pump money into the economy, they inflate asset prices. Stocks, real estate, luxury items—these soar. Who owns these assets? The rich. The majority,...

 Spaghetti economics: Shootout at Harvard Square There were two letters about the poorly written (not the English, always impeccable, contrasting to my spaghetti English, which is always slightly off, like the Westerns) piece that The Economist had on Donald Harris. One by Robert Blecker, Steve Fazzari and Peter Ho, setting the record straight on the breadth and depth of Harris' contributions to economics. On this, they echo what the Post said about Harris' policy advice in his native...

I just finished reading “America for Americans: A history of xenophobia in the United States” by Erika Lee. It is an unsparing analysis of the way xenophobia is woven into the fabric of American law and culture.When you read “America for Americans,” does it conjure an image of native Americans asserting their rights to the lands that were over-run by western Europeans? Of course not. The people who use that expression are overwhelmingly whites of...