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

Coronavirus dashboard for April 20: a few positive development

Coronavirus dashboard for April 20: a few positive development Here is the update through yesterday (April 19) As usual, significant developments are in italics. Yesterday saw the biggest number of daily tests, and ratio of total vs. positive tests so far, both positive developments.  The number and rate of daily infections and deaths also declined, but […]

Abbreviated coronavirus dashboard for April 18…In no way is the US ready to “open up” at all.

Abbreviated coronavirus dashboard for April 18 Here is the update through yesterday (April 17) There are some extended comments I want to make about the pandemic, and some graphs comparing States, etc., that are best done separately, so this will be an abbreviated update. Here are yesterday’s numbers. Number and rate of increase of Reported […]

What the Index of Leading Indicators tells us about the 2020 Presidential election

What the Index of Leading Indicators tells us about the 2020 Presidential election One of the better econometric models that I made use of back in 2016 was that by Prof. Robert S. Erickson of Columbia University and Prof. Christopher Wlezien of the University of Texas at Austria, entitled “Forecasting the Presidential Vote with leading economic […]

March housing, latest weekly jobless claims slightly less apocalyptic than expected

March housing, latest weekly jobless claims slightly less apocalyptic than expected If I were President, the one industry in the economy that I would be actively trying to prop up is housing. As I have repeated constantly over the past 10+ years, housing is a long leading indicator. The permit that is issued today means […]

Coronavirus dashboard for April 16: if new infections have passed peak, what pace of decline can we expect?

Coronavirus dashboard for April 16: if new infections have passed peak, what pace of decline can we expect? Here is the update through yesterday (April 15). Significant new items are in italics In the US, the only significant development yesterday was that deaths rose to yet another new daily high, while infections continued to be below […]

A thought for Sunday: a brief history of Republics anticipates Trump

A thought for Sunday: a brief history of Republics anticipates Trump I just finished reading William R. Everdell’s “The End of KIngs: A History of Republics and Republicans,” which was originally published in 1983. It was interesting to read a book that treated Watergate as recent history! I want to write at more length about […]

Consumer prices sharply decline in March: keep your eye on wages

Consumer prices sharply decline in March: keep your eye on wages   This morning we got some monthly economic data that will be actually valuable to watch throughout this Coronavirus Recession: consumer prices. That’s because during recessions, consumer price growth decelerates, as does wage growth, which continues to decelerate well after the recession bottoms out. […]

Abbreviated Coronavirus dashboard for April 12: fundamentally, still flying blind

Abbreviated Coronavirus dashboard for April 12: fundamentally, still flying blind Here is the update through yesterday (April 11) This is an abbreviated version, covering just the essentials. Number and rate of increase of Reported Infections (from Johns Hopkins via arcgis.com) Number: up +28,391 to 530,006 (vs. 35,219 prior peak on April 10) Figure 1 ***Rate of […]

Coronavirus dashboard for April 11: new high in daily infections as testing falls further behind

Coronavirus dashboard for April 11: new high in daily infections as testing falls further behind Here is the update through yesterday (April 10) I’ve changed the format, moving the “just the facts, ma’am” data to the top, and comments to the end. Significant new developments are indicated in italics. The four most important metrics are starred […]

The superiority of stay at home orders vs. voluntary social distancing: two graphic proofs

The superiority of stay at home orders vs. voluntary social distancing: two graphic proofs Here are a couple of graphs I pulled last week that I’ve been meaning to post. Together they show that mandatory “stay at home” orders have been much more effective than voluntary social distancing. First, here is a graph of the […]