“Legal observers were surprised by the relatively light, 47-month sentence received Thursday by President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who was convicted in August on charges of tax and bank fraud. The 69-year-old, who appeared in the court in Virginia in a wheelchair and pleaded for compassion, could have been sentenced to up to […]
“The Pentagon is planning to tap $1 billion in leftover funds from military pay and pension accounts to help President Donald Trump pay for his long-sought border wall, a top Senate Democrat said Thursday. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL ‘It’s coming out of military pay and pensions. $1 billion. That’s the plan. The funds are available […]
This Friday, watch out for an outright decline in temporary employment Almost a month ago I flagged the decelerating staffing index, and showed how it corresponded with the leading sector of temporary jobs in the monthly jobs report: the Staffing Index isn’t seasonally adjusted, [so] you really have to compare each on a YoY basis. And […]
Two more leading sectors to watch for in tomorrow’s jobs report Yesterday I updated my look at temporary jobs, a known leading indicator for jobs overall. Today I want to look at two more leading sectors: manufacturing and construction. Unlike temporary jobs, I’m not looking for a possible decline. Rather, I am looking for a […]
Residential construction declines in December, but looks to be bottoming Residential construction spending lags sales, permits, and starts. But it still leads the economy overall, and it is a much smoother data series, with little noise. It is almost all signal, and so it is an important confirmation of the more leading data. In December, […]
(Dan here…lifted from Bondadd blog) by New Deal democrat Climate change is the detonation of the Population Bomb You know the drill … it’s Sunday so I speak my mind on things non-economic….. Way back in the days of the dinosaurs when I was a young teen, I concluded that there were really only two […]
by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for February 25 – March 1 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Last year the most significant developments were in the long leading indicators. Now that is translating into the short leading indicators. As always, clicking and reading not only should be educational for […]
Visa Restrictions And Intellectual Degradation I am in New York attending the Eastern Economic Association meetings. I was in an agent-based modeling session in which two partticipants participated by internet because they were both refused visaas to enter the US. One was from Turkey, which I think is under strict review by the current administration. […]
Don’t blame me. Blame Noah Smith who asked me to write more about MMT. I don’t know much about MMT, but I am going to write about it anyway. First, there seems to be an extremely important disagreement between MMTers. There are definitely some that argue that MMT implies the US Federal Government can (and […]