“The Changing of the Guard:” the prescient 1980 book that foretold neoliberalism About a month ago I read the synopsis of an interview in which Thomas Frank described the near evisceration of the Democratic Party. Here’s his simple version: “[T]he Democrats have, what happened is that some years ago they decided they didn’t want to […]
In which I (partially) disagree with Dean Baker about the stock market Dean Baker complained yesterday about pundits who talk about the stock market in terms of economic well-being: As someone who routinely considers both corporate profits and stock prices in terms of economic well-being, I disagree — somewhat.
On JOLTS, I continue to dissent The only two significant items of data in the second week of the month typically had been the JOLTS report and the Labor Market Conditions Index. I say, “had been” because the Fed has discontinued reporting the LMCI. Here’s their explanation: Although the LMCI was reconstructed back 50 years, […]
July jobs report: across the board solid HEADLINES: +209,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate down -0.1% from 4.4% to 4.3% U6 underemployment rate unchanged 8.6% Here are the headlines on wages and the chronic heightened underemployment: Wages and participation rates Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now: down -11,000 from 5.431 million to […]
Rasmussen poll shows GOP losing midterms in a wave I like K.I.S.S. methods, and I have decided that the easiest K.I.S.S. guide to the midterm elections is likely to be Rasmussen’s “net strong disapproval” spread. The theory is that while voters who even weakly approve or disapprove of a President are likely to come out […]
Apartment vacancy rate improves, but “rental affordability crisis” at worst level ever Over three years ago HUD warned of “the worst rental affordability crisis ever,” citing statistics that About half of renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, up from 18 percent a decade ago, according to newly released research by […]
LOOK AT THE BIG DIVERGENCE BETWEEN “SOFT” AND “HARD” DATA … Ummm ..never mind…. Since this year the Doomers haven’t even been able to rouse themselves up enough to call for OMG recession imminent!!!, they have had to settle for how slow the growth in the economy has been. Their favorite theme has been the […]
Of the two meanings of “Neoliberalism” The use of the term “neoliberal” has recently been criticized as a meaningless epithet, a tabula rasa used to disparage anyone deemed unsatisfactorily conservative. To the contrary, I think the term “neoliberal” is fairly precise, but much like the term “liberal” itself, it has two quite different meanings depending […]
Trump’s presidency is 1/8 done. The economy is still on Obama’s autopilot. Where’s the DOOOM?!? Today marks half a year since Donald Trump took the Oath of Office as President. I just wanted to note that, so far, absolutely nothing of significance has been enacted to affect the economy. It’s still basically Barack Obama’s expansion. […]
Trump: the endgame There was some economic news last week which is important for the long term, and I’ll try to post about it later today or tomorrow, but in the meantime … I’m as interested in the latest Trump-Russia tidbit as the next person, but really, don’t we all already know the endgame? Remember […]