Sorry, there seems to be a problem at BLS and I have not yet been able to download the data as of 9:15. After yesterday in the stock market we needed some good news and compared to reduced expectations the employment report provided it. Private payrolls rose by 117,000 a levelmuch better than the last […]

If the debt ceiling is not raised at some point the US government will be unable to meet all of its obligations. I assume that they will make their interest payments and bond redemptions on schedule and the shortfall will be in paying social secutiry, medicare, military and other obligations. This will naturally impact aggregrate […]

Industrial production was reported to have increased 0.2% in June as compared to – 0.1% declines in April and May. The entire gain was in mining and utilities as manufacturing output was unchanged. The chart shows industrial production this cycle compared to other cycles. The old forecasting rule of thumb was that it took about […]

Over at Economist’ View he has posted a nice set of charts on the GDP Gap, employment versus the long term trend and other measures of how much excess capacity the economy has that have become very popular among economists over the last couple of years. http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/ But these charts never include profits in their […]

The employment was bad news as payroll employment only rose by 18,000 as compared to the last months disappointing rise of 25,000. Government employment fell 39,000 versus 48,000 inMay. Private payrolls expanded only 57,000 that was even weaker than the prior months 73,000. Over the last two months payroll employment was essentially unchanged. Moreover, the […]

Demand destruction. Demand destruction. Demand destruction. That is all one seemed to hear from analysts and managers for months as food and energy prices soared. But now that we are actually seeing demand destruction, no one seems to recognize it. Yes, much of the May drop in auto sales was due to supply chain interruptions. […]

The employment report came in much as the ADP report had suggested it would. Payroll employment was little changed at 54,000. This is considerably weaker than over the last few months and is in line with other data that suggest the economy has weakened significantly. The household survey reported that employment rose by 105,000 while […]

The stock market is adjusting to weaker 2011 economic and earnings growth. Business executives,analysts and economists have yet to reduce their 2011 estimates, So the important question is how much of the lowergrowth is already discounted. The consensus had been fordouble digit earnings gains in 2011. But now it appears thatearnings growth will be less […]

The headline number of payroll jobs was strong and the markets are reacting strongly to the report that 224,000 jobs were created last month. Moreover, the job gains were widespread with the only secctors to show an employment drop were temporary jobs and government.Private payroll employment rose 268,000, the largest increase this cycle. But the […]

This morning in his Monday column Paul Krugman discussed the need to raise taxes todeal with the long run structural federal deficit. You can read the column at Economist’s view without worrying about the Times’ pay wall. http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/. Every time any one proposes higher taxes Larry Kudlow and the right wing noise machine shouts to […]