Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Weekly Indicators for October 7 – 11 at Seeking Alpha

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for October 7 – 11 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The stars are aligning for the recovery from the present slowdown in the longer term. But in the meantime, the present and short term data is still soft. As usual, clicking over and […]

Scenes from the September jobs report

Scenes from the September jobs report I shared the best good news from the September jobs report released last Friday: there’s a good argument that the economy has reached “full employment,” although we could do even better if real wages improved more. Today let’s look at the bad news, which comes from examining the leading […]

Eeeeeeeeemoluments And How Bad Bruce Springsteen Is

Eeeeeeeeemoluments And How Bad Bruce Springsteen Is I have almost never watched through a Trump speech to one of his rallies, but I was curious what he would say at the first one after the impeachment inquiry officially started, which he held a few days ago in Minneapolis, supposedly trying to take MN away from […]

August JOLTS report: nearly all employment measures now neutral

August JOLTS report: nearly all employment measures now neutral The JOLTS report for August showed a decline in all metrics m/m as well as a slowing trend overall. To review, because this series is only 20 years old, we only have one full business cycle to compare. During the 2000s expansion: Hires peaked first, from December […]

The road to dictatorship is depressingly predictable. 

Interesting stuff from the One Handed Economist “The road to dictatorship is depressingly predictable. Once power is stolen, the problem is to keep it. Anyone who might develop a separate power base must be struck down. Eradicate rivals, rule through force and fear. Trust no one, particularly family, friends and the army. Keep everyone on their […]

Medicare for All

Medicare for All The abstract for “Does Medicare Coverage Improve Cancer Detection and Mortality Outcomes?” by Rebecca Mary Myerson, Reginald Tucker-Seeley, Dana Goldman and Darius N. Lakdawalla: Medicare is the largest government insurance program in the United States, providing coverage for over 60 million people in 2018. This paper analyzes the effects of Medicare insurance on health for a group […]

Extremely Implausible Deniability

“The U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland,” is a law abiding citizen and also a team player. He has been subpoenaed and will have to testify about Trump and Ukraine. Also he seems to be very well understood by some guy who is talking and talking and talking with Washington Post Reporters Aaron […]

Real average and aggregate wages for September

Real average and aggregate wages for September Now that we have the September inflation reading, let’s take a look at real wage growth. First of all, nominal average hourly wages in September increased +0.2%, while consumer prices were unchanged. As a result, after rounding, real average hourly wages for non-managerial personnel increased +0.1%. This translates […]

From Intellectual to influencer

Interesting stuff from the One Handed Economist From Intellectual to influencer: “In the case of the public intellectual, the institution was the academy and the role was thinking. In the case of the public influencer, the institution is the corporation and the role is marketing. The shift makes sense. Marketing, after all, has displaced thinking […]

Closing The Open Skies

Closing The Open Skies Trump’s stonewalling on impeachment is the top story, snore.  Lower down and more important is Trump allowing Turkey to attack the Kurds in Syria with the support of Russia. Even GOP senators do not like this and ISIS fighters may get out. But, heck, those will go to Europe, and unlike […]