– by New Deal democrat First things first: there’s almost no significant economic news at all this week until Thursday, so don’t be surprised if I play hooky for a day or two. The coincident headline news out of last Friday’s employment report was very positive, so most all observers heaved a sigh of relief. Of […]

 – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. There was a slight fading of several indicators in the short leading and coincident sphere, but overall the positive and improving trend continues. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment as to the state of the […]

 – by New Deal democrat Recently I have paid much more attention to the ISM services index. That’s because, since the turn of the Millennium, manufacturing’s share of the economy has contracted to the point where even a significant decline in that index has not translated into an economy-wide recession, as for example in 2015-16.  When we […]

 – by New Deal democrat Especially in view of the relative weakness in the jobs report for the past few months, my focus continues to be on whether jobs gains are most consistent with a “soft landing,” i.e., no further deterioration, or whether there is further decline towards a recession.  For this month at least, the […]

– by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims will be up against some very challenging comparisons for the next 6 months or so, due to some unresolved post-COVID seasonality. Which means that the headline numbers this week, which look very benign at the surface, are not quite so good as they have been for the […]

– by New Deal democrat I wanted to follow up on a point I made yesterday: although manufacturing is no longer a big enough slice of the US economy to bring about an economic downturn on its own – unless for some reason the manufacturing downturn were unusually severe – when it is paired with […]

– by New Deal democrat This month we started the month with not just the usual two important reports on the leading sectors of manufacturing and construction, but the JOLTS report for August as well (which I will summarize separately). In the big picture, I do not see the US economy falling into recession unless either […]

– by New Deal democrat On Friday I highlighted the sharp positive revision to the personal saving rate.  That was a byproduct of a similar sharply higher revision to real personal income over the past two years. Here is what those revisions, to real personal disposable income, look like: Instead of being up 6.8% since […]

-by New Deal democrat The monthly personal income and spending report is now the most important report of all, except for jobs. That’s becuase it tells us so much about the state of the consumer economy. It is the raw material for several important coincident indicators that the NBER looks at, as well as several […]

– by New Deal democrat I’ve been writing for the past number of weeks that we were approaching the acid test for the hypothesis that unresolved post-pandemic seasonality explained the sharp increase in jobless claims in the summer. This week we are fully immersed in the 6+ month comparison period where initial claims in the […]