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

Sales lead employment: real aggregate payrolls update

Sales lead employment: real aggregate payrolls update  – by New Deal democrat The drought in new data ends tomorrow with consumer inflation. In preparation, let’s take a look at real aggregate payrolls. These increased 0.2% in December, one of the lower readings in the past 2 years: On a YoY basis, aggregate nonsupervisory payrolls increased […]

The Great Resignation About Quitting, Burnout, or a Mass Exodus?

Some light reading. I subscribe to it (The Atlantic) and have done so since the Civil War for a decade. Thought I would post one from The Atlantic’s News Letter (I think). Just an interesting read about something they discovered happening or maybe not-happening. People locked into something they do not like, have to stay, […]

USPS tells regulator, “Mind your own regs”

USPS tells regulator, “Mind your own regulations.” Save the Post Office, Steve Hutkins The Postal Service has started off the New Year by refusing to answer important questions about its 10-year plan, Delivering for America. Earlier this week, the Postal Service told the Postal Regulatory Commission that its latest information request was outside the statutory […]

Housing Expenditures Impact on Social Security Beneficiaries, 2005 – 2018

I was looking for a report through 2022 on housing. This was the best I could do. Maybe later? The report is about households with or without SS beneficiaries who are renting, homeowners with mortgages, and homeowners without mortgages. The study is looking at the cost impact in each category for those households with SS […]

The 101st Chairborn: History is a Prankster

I don’t know if kids these days still use the slang, but back in the glory days of blogging, a way to mock chicken hawks was to call them keyboard warriors or the 101st chairborn. These were people convinced they were fighting terror by advocating aggressive foreign policy in the safety of their own house […]

Scenes from the jobs report 2: unemployment rate and consumption: weak, but not recessionary

Scenes from the jobs report 2: the unemployment rate and consumption: weak, but not recessionary  – by New Deal democrat Yesterday I looked at some employment metrics from Friday’s jobs report. Today let’s look at un- (and under-) employment. Every Thursday I repeat the mantra that jobless claims lead the unemployment rate. Here are both […]

Personal Saving Makes More than 40% of Property Income . . . Invisible. Think Total Return

Personal income, so Personal saving, ignore a huge part of Total Return — the income-from-assets measure used by every modern portfolio investor. Guess what’s missing? Personal Saving Makes More than 40% of Property Income . . . Invisible. Think Total Return, Wealth Economics, Steve Roth Matthew Klein and Joey Politano have been singularly responsible in their discussions of […]

It’s Cheaper to Manufacture Plastic Products in Ohio than in China

Before you go on a bender claiming it is not true. It is true. Your costs of inventory and transportation are high. Three weeks on the ocean plus one week on the dock on each side of the ocean. Transportation costs and time to the buyer. Container costs this last go around were as high […]

Scenes from the leading sectors of the December jobs report: sectors of weakness and strength

Scenes from the leading sectors of the December jobs report: sectors of weakness and strength  – by New Deal democrat For nearly two decades, my focus on economic reporting online has been finding and examining leading indicators; those datapoints that tell us where the economy in general, and in particular jobs and income for ordinary […]