I don’t know about you, but when I recently updated this chart I was pleasantly surprised by how much the deficit had improved.  In the third quarter of 2012 –the last quarter of the previous fiscal year — the deficit had already fallen to 7.0% of GDP as compared to the peak of 10.5% in […]

At first glance the December employment report shows that the trends throughout 2012 were unchanged in December.  But within the report there were some greater signs of strength. Private payroll employment showed a gain of 155,000 and the household survey reported a much smaller gain of only 28,000.  These changes are about the same  as […]

The employment report was better than expected as Sandy apparently did not have the widely expected negative impact.  But the data essentially shows that the recent trend of weak employment continued as payrolls expanded some 146,000 and the household survey showed a -122,00 drop. Private payrolls expanded some  147,00 as government employment fell about 1,000.  […]

This was another mixed employment report.  The headline increase of 171,000 increase in payroll employment and 410,000 rise in employment reported in the household survey appeared strong.  But  other signs of weakness appeared within the report. The 184,000 increase in private payroll employment was the strongest since February. The unemployment rate ticked up from 7.8 […]

I hear so many things about how investors prefer a Republican president I often  wonder if they have ever looked at the data.  Of course from just looking at a chart of the S&;P 500 since WWII  it is hard to see how the market has performed under different presidents.   Maybe this chart that […]

In the Vice Presidential debate Ryan said that the Kennedy tax cuts generated so much growth that tax receipts increased enough to offset the revenue losses. When I look at the data it sure looks like this claim is another one of his Any Rand fantasies.  The economy did grow rapidly after the Kennedy tax […]

The employment situation was mixed with the headline number, payroll employment adding 114,000 and the household report showing a gain of 873,000. To a great extent the very large increase in the household survey appears to be just a make up for earlier weakness when the payroll report was showing larger gains than the household […]

 Auto and light truck sales for September was just reported at a rather strong 14.96 million units. This puts sales back above the strong trend line for this recovery. But it might be more interesting to look at production that has also been very strong. Since production bottomed during the cash for clunkers program industrial production […]

Bill McBride at Calculated Risk does his usual excellent job of reporting economic data; He just reported the state unemployment rates and published a chart comparing the current rate with each state’s peak rate. One very significant point that popps up in this chart is that Michigan and Ohio appear to have had the greatest […]

The Wall Street Journal is running an article where they suggest that sales of the new i Phone could boost US real GDP growth. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443696604577645920875813322.htmlased firm But the i Phone is built in China by a Taiwanese based firm.  So the consumer and business spending on the new i Phone will be offset in the […]