Transfers to the non-governmental sector are still falling. 
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April JOLTS report: firming in hires, quits, and a (good) decline in layoffs, while “fictitious” job openings continue their slide
– by New Deal democrat The JOLTS report for April showed most metrics rebounding slightly from March lows, with the exception of the “soft data” job openings. The overall picture is that hiring is weak relative to the past five years, but so are layoffs, and voluntary quits are equally relatively strong, balancing them out. To wit: job openings (blue in the graph below), a soft statistic that is polluted by imaginary, permanent, and trolling...
Read More »Post-real economics — a severe case of mathiness
from Lars Syll In practice, what math does is let macro-economists locate the FWUTVs [facts with unknown truth values] farther away from the discussion of identification … Relying on a micro-foundation lets an author say, “Assume A, assume B, … blah blah blah … And so we have proven that P is true. Then the model is identified.” … Distributional assumptions about error terms are a good place to bury things because hardly anyone pays attention to them. Moreover, if a critic does see that...
Read More »Is 3D printing the answer to the housing crisis?
In a rebuke to the standard economic model that demand drives supply, housing prices in the US these days continue to rise. How much of this is due to local regulation vs cost of new home construction is above my pay grade. But the claim is that 3D printed homes can mitigate shortages in affordable new home construction:“Dozens of 3D-printed homes have been built across the world – to house a family in the US state of Virginia or members of an...
Read More »The Beta distribution (student stuff)
The Beta distribution (student stuff) .[embedded content] Added: And here’s a little Python code yours truly has put together so you can play around and plot Beta distributions: import numpy as np import matplotlib.pyplot as plt from scipy.stats import beta # Given data total_flips = 100 observed_heads = 60 observed_tails = 40 # Adjusted to match 100 flips # Calculating the probability of heads and tails prob_heads = observed_heads / total_flips...
Read More »AZ Republicans to add ballot measure allowing warrantless arrests over immigration suspicions
by Camaron Stevenson Copper Courier Arizona Republican legislators trying to look good with passing laws having unconstitutional mandates (2010), do nothing, and/or have minimal impact. ~~~~~~~~ Republicans move to add ballot measure allowing warrantless arrests over immigration suspicions Republicans in the Arizona Legislature have approved a ballot measure supporters claim will address the fentanyl crisis despite the expanded police...
Read More »Why the Tories’ “put people to work” growth strategy has failed
What do you do when your economy is in the doldrums and you need to kickstart growth?Why, you put more people to work, that's what you do.This has been the Tories’ strategy since 2010. The sustained attack on welfare benefits has all been focused on “making work pay” - encouraging, and at the margin forcing, people with illnesses, disabilities and caring responsibilities into paid work. But there is another way of putting more people to work, and that is to import them. In a new report, the...
Read More »Demographic Outlook 2024 to 2054 Part 1: Factors Contributing to Population Growth
The Demographic Outlook: 2024 to 2054, Congressional Budget Office, January 2024 A difference approach to determining the population, the resulting projections, and outcomes as determined by the Congressional Budget Office. The Congressional Budget Office is describing its population projections, which underlie the agency’s baseline budget projections and economic forecast that have been published in already. This report provides the foundation...
Read More »The good old days
When I started attending departmental faculty meetings in 1987, there was an emeritus faculty, Harold Katzman, who went to most of the meetings. He rarely said anything, but he did make the effort to show up, perhaps out of personal loyalty. Dr. Katzman was the first graduate student of our department’s founding chair, Dr. Edward Doisy. After he graduated in 1928, Dr. Doisy hired him as a faculty.Shortly before Dr. Katzman died, my then-chairman, Dr....
Read More »Atlanta Fed revises Q2 GDP down for a fifth time. 
I predicted this from their very first forecast. 
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