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

On Appeasement

On Appeasement Sometimes on Sundays I leave the dreary world of economics behind and write of broader things. Since most tomes covering American history have an underlying sunny optimism that is nowhere appropriate for our times, recently I’ve been reading more world history having to do with the rise of fascism or fall of democracy. […]

Positive July housing permits and starts

Positive July housing permits and starts The housing starts and permits report this morning for July adds to the positive data looking forward to H2 2020 (or, possibly, less bad – but that’s another discussion). First, here are overall permits (red) and starts (blue): While the very volatile starts declined, the slightly more forward looking […]

Industrial production, jobless claims, and retail sales

Industrial production, jobless claims, and retail sales As I noted this morning, a slew of important data was released. Let me deal with the “normal” weekly and monthly data in this post. First, industrial production continues to languish, down significantly from the end of last year, whether measured in total or just as to manufacturing: […]

Real average and aggregate wage growth for July 2019: yellow flag for aggregate wages

Real average and aggregate wage growth for July 2019: yellow flag for aggregate wages Now that we have the July inflation reading, let’s take a look at real wages. First of all, nominal average hourly wages in June increased +0.2%, while consumer prices increased +0.3%, meaning real average hourly wages for non-managerial personnel decreased -0.1%. […]

Notes on the June JOLTS report: weakness but no imminent downturn

Notes on the June JOLTS report: weakness but no imminent downturn I’m still on vacation, so continue to expect light posting. But I thought I’d take a look at the one piece of data that came out this week, the June JOLTS report. First of all, the “hiring leads firing” mantra continues to be true: […]

Scenes from the July employment report

Scenes from the July employment report First things first: I’m on a vacation for part of this week, so don’t be surprised if there are no postings for a few days. The July employment report continued a string of good headline numbers with weak leading internals. Let’s take a look. In the good news department, […]

The housing choke collar

The housing choke collar I have a new post up at Seeking Alpha, discussing how, even though sales went down last year, and have already bottomed, house prices have as usual, followed into decline with a lag. Beyond that, I discuss the concept of a “housing choke collar,’ similar to the “oil choke collar” I used […]

June 2019 personal income and spending

June 2019 personal income and spending The wage-earner/consumer remains in decent shape, and a lack of inflation (continued low gas prices!) continues to be able to hide a multitude of sins. That’s the message from this morning’s June report for personal income and spending. Nominally, income rose +0.4%, while spending rose +0.3%. Since inflation as […]