Hurricane adjusted initial claims for week of Sept. 2: 239,000 Last week I promised I would repeat an exercise I first undertook in 2012 when Superstorm Sandy disrupted the initial claims data: estimating what the initial jobless claims would have been, but for the hurricane. In 2012 I created that adjustment by backing out the […]
A note on Hurricane Harvey and unemployment claims Initial jobless claims for last week were reported at 298,000 this morning, a jump of over 50,000 from recent levels. As most people probably already know, this huge jump had everything to do with Hurricane Harvey shutting down southeastern Texas, including the entire 7 million Houston metro […]
The August jobs report smacked of late cycle deceleration As promised, here is my abbreviated and late take on this morning’s employment report. While the additions to temporary positions (a leading indicator for jobs overall), and construction, and manufacturing jobs were welcome, this report sure looked like late cycle deceleration. The YoY% growth in jobs […]
Trickle-down, with the emphasis on “trickle” Since the turn of the Millennium, a torrent of corporate tax cuts has resulted in a trickle of investment growth. This morning Dean Baker objects to: the argument … that reducing corporate taxes will lead to more investment and thereby greater wage growth in the future. The data from […]
Notes on Harvey: if Karma could bring her litter to visit the Texas GOP First of all, as many of you already know, the M.I.A. proprietor of Bonddad blog, Hale Stewart, resides in the Houston area. I traded messages with him on Saturday, and as of then, he was doing OK. Secondly, when Superstorm Sandy […]
An economy on autopilot between Scylla and Charybdis Interest rates are a vital determinant of longer term growth. While the economy has remained on autopilot for the last several years, with almost no political stimulus or disruption — though that may well change next month — the Fed has to steer a course between the […]
by New Deal Democrat Free Trade, the Primrose Path, and the Blinkered Blindness of macroeconomists Here’s what I learned today: the origin of the phrase “being led down the primrose path.” It turns out that in medieval times, one meaning of the word “primrose” was the “prime,” or first or loveliest, rose. Thus taking the […]
(Update…Dan here…I erroneously posted this post under Barkley”s name but it is NDd.) On the erection of Confederate memorials: in which I have to get this off my chest Below is a photograph of the World War Two Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Keep it in the back of your mind. I’ll […]
Real retail sales disappoints . . . the Doomers This morning’s report on July retail sales once again belies the claim that “hard data” and “soft data” are divergent.. Not only did July come in at a strong +0.6% (+0.5% ex-autos), but June was revised up as well. Given basically non-existent inflation, this means that […]
One tiny little ray of hope After the Charlottesville, VA white supremacy violence, and his failure to explicitly condemn it, Donald Trump’s Gallup approval rating has fallen to a new low of 34%, and his disapproval to a new high of 61%: This puts him below the lowest ratings during their entire term of Lyndon […]