YoY Industrial production and structural changes to the US economy since 1980 No big economic releases today, so let me follow up further with a few long-term comments on industrial production. This series goes back 100 years to the beginning of 1919. Since that time it has turned negative YoY 25 times: Of those 25 […]
Industrial production continues to decelerate Industrial production is the King of Coincident Indicators. In dating the onset and end of recessions, in practice the NBER relies upon industrial production more than any other measure. March 2019 production continued a string of recent disappointments, with overall production declining -0.1%, and manufacturing production unchanged. For the first […]
What would it take to save a scab industry from leaving the market place? The sorcerous of Grand Rapids Betsy DeVos has the answer. Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education reversed the Obama-era crackdown on vocational and career schools thereby allowing new and inexperienced entrants into the field and alleviating pressure on old participants to have […]
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child After Peter Dorman’s latest post this seems appropriate to follow up. Very recently I was at a talk where somebody spoke on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. A theme of the talk was how few Americans know about this UN Convention while […]
This tidbit was reported in an October 13, 1989 Los Angeles Times. In a June 21 (1989) legal opinion requested by Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, Assistant Atty. Gen. William P. Barr reversed a ruling dating back to the Carter Administration denying the FBI authority to take unilateral action overseas in what was then referred to […]
In this post I will use revealed preference and assume people are rational. Sorry. I’m an economist and I can’t entirely resist. I will argue that our joy and suffering is bounded, that we can’t be infinitely happy or infinitely miserable. The first argument is standard, the second is something Peter Mollgaard thought of the […]
by New Deal democrat The three best arguments against an economic slowdown I still think I’m right that there will be a worsening economic slowdown that shows up by about summertime and continues towards the end of the year.But there is one long leading indicator and two important short leading indicators that are going the […]
by New Deal democrat The economy in 2019: a look at the “big picture” Although I have a bunch of nerdy forecasting models, I view my primary mission as trying to explain what is going on in the economy for ordinary middle and working class American workers and consumers.I’ve been meaning to do a “30,000 […]
Is Stephen Moore a Gold Bug? A lot of the criticisms of putting the twin village idiots known as Herman Cain and Stephen Moore on the FED assert that they are gold bugs. Kate Riga watched CNN when Erin Burnett interviewed Stephen Moore on this allegation: Stephen Moore tries to flip-flop on the gold standard — but […]