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Weekly Indicators for November 15 – 19 at Seeking Alpha

Dan Crawford | November 21, 2021 11:00 am

by New Deal democrat

Weekly Indicators for November 15 – 19 at Seeking Alpha

My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.

From time to time here, I put up a post including “you’re reading the right blog” in the title. This week was similar at Seeking Alpha. In the past week or so, there have been a number of articles in the mainstream financial media about how the shipping bottleneck is at least beginning to ease, and gas and oil prices have begun to decline.

But that is something I started to write about in my “Weekly Indicators” columns almost in real time beginning 5 weeks ago.

This is exactly the kind of thing tracking high frequency indicators is designed to accomplish; a heads-up alert about a change in trend almost as soon as it starts, and well before monthly or quarterly data shows it, let alone the mass media reporting about it.

And reading today’s article will continue to provide you with that information, and reward me just a little for being ahead of the pack.

2 Comments

Fred C. Dobbs says:

November 21, 2021 at 2:49 pm

Thanksgiving Will Cost More This Year.

Rising prices for gas and a holiday meal could come back to bite Democrats, who fear that inflation may upend their electoral prospects in the 2022 midterms.

… As Americans go on the road this week to travel for family gatherings, the higher costs of driving and one of the most expensive meals of the year have alarmed Democrats, who fear that inflation may upend their electoral prospects in the midterms. Republicans are increasingly confident that a rising cost of living — the ultimate kitchen-table issue — will be the most salient factor in delivering a red wave in 2022.

Democrats’ passage in quick succession of the $1 trillion infrastructure law and, in the House, of a $2.2 trillion social safety net and climate bill, promise once-in-a-generation investments that Democratic candidates plan to run on next year, with many of the policies in the bills broadly popular.

But, despite rising wages and falling unemployment, Democrats are also in danger of being swept aside in a hostile political environment shaped in large part by the highest inflation in 30 years, which has defied early predictions that it would be short-lived as the country pulled out of the pandemic. …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  November 21, 2021 at 2:53 pm
  
  With control of Congress and many key governor seats at stake, Republicans are pointing to public and private surveys that show inflation is linked to Americans’ falling approval of Mr. Biden. And, given the wholesale gerrymanders drawn, particularly by Republicans, in the current round of congressional redistricting, the Democrats would face a high bar in keeping their paper-thin majority in the House of Representatives, even in a favorable environment. …
  
  Consumer prices in Michigan and the Midwest rose by 6.6 percent in October, more than the national average, compared with a year ago.
  
  The causes are the same as what drives the national spike, the steepest in 31 years, economists say — high demand for goods by consumers spending again after the pandemic lockdown, and a global supply chain with lots of kinks still to be worked out. Gas prices are high partly because of a choke on production by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
  
  Some economists — and many Republicans — blame Democrats’ $1.9 trillion Covid relief aid in the spring for overstimulating demand. They warn that Democrats’ new big spending measure, the Build Back Better plan, which targets struggling families and workers with the most substantive programs since the Great Society in the 1960s, will further push up prices.
  
  The White House counters that inflation is tied to short-term bottlenecks in the supply chain; its major domestic spending, the administration said, will eventually tame inflation by making businesses and workers more productive. …