Jobless claims: the beginning of a pandemic reversal? This week’s new jobless claims rose from last week’s pandemic lows, while continued jobless claims again declined to new pandemic lows. On an unadjusted basis, new jobless claims rose by 18,264 to 743,460. Seasonally adjusted claims rose by 31,000 to 742,000. The 4 week moving average, […]
Coronavirus dashboard for November 20: North Dakota “leads” the world Total US infections: 11,715,316* Average last 7 days: 165,029/day (new record high = 1 out of every 2000 Americans infected per day!) Total US deaths: 252,535 Average last 7 days: 1,335/day Source: COVID Tracking Project *confirmed cases only: I suspect the total number is on […]
John Locke: decisionmaking by standing rules set in advance is a foundational requirement for civil government John Locke’s “Second Treatise of Government,” published in 1690 just after and in support of the Glorious Revolution, is the founding philosophical document of modern liberal representative democracies. In it he anticipates John Rawls’s “original position.” Locke argues that […]
Housing permits and starts: more evidence for a powerful economic liftoff in 2021 This morning (Nov. 19) yet another leading indicator showed that the economy is revving to move ahead strongly, and is only being held back by the pandemic (and the horrible “response” by Trump). Total (blue in the graph below) and single family […]
Coronavirus Dashboard for November 16: raging out of control Total US infections: 11,036,935* Average last 7 days: 148,725/day (new record high) Total US deaths: 246,214 Average last 7 days: 1,103/day Source: COVID Tracking Project *confirmed cases only: I suspect the total number is on the order of 16 million, or close to 5% of the […]
Economy still expanding, but with retail consumption outpacing production This morning saw two important releases of October data: industrial production and retail sales. Both showed continued strength. Industrial production is the King of Coincident Indicators, and more than any other metric typically shows whether the overall economy is expanding or contracting. In October it increased […]
Democrats: the “less unpopular” party No economic news today (Nov. 16). I hope to put up an updated Coronavirus Dashboard (hint: it’s pretty unremittingly awful) later. In the meantime, I wanted to add a postscript to yesterday’s post about the Democrats’ problem obtaining a durable electoral majority. It occurred to me after I put up […]
The Democrats’ problem in the Senate, explained One of the memes that I have read quite a few times in the past week is that the Democrats have won 7 of the last 8 Presidential elections and that the institutions of electoral government discriminate against them. A review of the actual results of the […]
Lack of inflation in September consistent with weak demand; real wages increase, but will the pandemic derail the gains? Consumer prices were unchanged in October, both on a seasonally adjusted and unadjusted basis: But while the lack of inflation is good news in isolation, the last two months can also be viewed […]
New and continued jobless claims: best week of the pandemic; can it survive a new emergency? This week’s new and continued jobless claims, both seasonally adjusted and unadjusted, declined to new pandemic lows – but at levels roughly equivalent to their worst readings during the Great Recession. On an unadjusted basis, new jobless claims […]