Housing’s most difficult comparisons in years begin next Wednesday After a real quiet week for news, next week we get retail sales, industrial production, the JOLTS report, existing home sales … and housing permits and starts. The week after, real residential fixed investment will be reported as part of Q3 GDP. Permits and residential fixed […]
Last March, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin sponsored a bill (Fair Care Act) to block President Trump’s plan to allow insurers to sell short term or what is frequently called junk plans. Senator Baldwin bill would reverse all of what the Republicans attempted to do with short term plans by reinstating protections for pre-exiting […]
Tracking Trump’s trade wars: inventories and intermodal traffic Here’s something I thought I would start to track: looking for evidence of the effects of Trump’s trade wars on manufacturing and distribution. Producers and distributors aren’t simply going to sit back and wait to absorb new tariff expenses: we should expect them to engage in as […]
U.S. Saudi Trade Donald Trump appears to be reluctant to investigate the murder of Jamal Khashoggibecause of an alleged trade deal? Donald Trump has said US investigators are looking into how Jamal Khashoggi vanished at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, but made clear that whatever the outcome, the US would not forgo lucrative arms deals with […]
(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts) Kevin Drum discusses single parent households Disqus won’t let me comment, so I post my comment on this post hereI am honestly impressed that you didn’t mention lead. So I will. The single parent household peak came later than the murder peak — as one would expect. Single parent households last […]
Is the taboo against raising wages beginning to break? It’s a *really* slow news week for economic data — just producer and consumer prices tomorrow and Thursday. Even JOLTS doesn’t come out until next week. But there was one little nugget of good news this morning: the NFIB, which represents small businesses, came out with their […]
This is a somewhat late 10th anniversary of the Lehman failure post. I am not going to write much that is new, but will restate an argument I have been making for years (following John Quiggin and Miles Kimball). It is trivially easy for the US Treasury (and other treasuries) to make huge profits on […]
The Trump administration has proposed changes to limit demonstrations near the White House and National Mall. The limits include closing 80% of the White House sidewalk, placing limits on spontaneous demonstrations, and imposing a “First Amendment fee” for protests (gotta make up for the deficits he created). ✓ The public has until October 15 to […]
Scenes from the September jobs report Leaving aside wages, there was lots of sunshine in September’s jobs report, although there were a few gray if not dark clouds on the horizon. Here’s a look at each: 1. Weekly jobless claims did lead the unemployment rate Two weeks ago, I wrote that the new 40+ year lows in […]