Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

New Deal democrat’s Weekly Indicators for April 3 – 7

Weekly Indicators for April 3 – 7 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.  Probably unsurprisingly, the big news this week was the effect of the revisions to the initial jobless claims data, and also the turning down of several sectors in the monthly jobs report. […]

March jobs report: leading sectors turn down, pre-recessionary report still quite positive

March jobs report: leading sectors turn down in a pre-recessionary, but still quite positive, report  – by New Deal democrat Unsurprisingly, my focus on this report, like the last few reports, was on whether residential construction jobs turned negative or not, whether manufacturing and temporary jobs continued on their downward trajectory, and whether the deceleration […]

Overdue Selection of Stuff from My In-Box

The Overdue Selection of Stuff from My In-Box. Some days are good at Angry Bear. Getting a background in how to run a Blog by myself at this time. Sometimes run out of ideas. Fortunately, I have good influx of articles hitting my In-Box daily. I recently cleaned out a couple of thousand emails going […]

Stand Aside Millennials, Baby Boomer homebuying bonanza

Except for the beginning, mostly a copy and paste here. Housing is an issue in the U.S. There are not many appropriately priced house being built or used ones on the market. The same holds true for apartments. We have a lot of young families trying to figure out where to live. Then once they […]

February JOLTS report shows further relative weakening in the jobs market

February JOLTS report shows further *relative* weakening in the jobs market  – by New Deal democrat The February JOLTS report showed a weakening in almost all important trends. The strongest component of the entire series has been job openings. I tend to place lower significance on this, because there is ample evidence that companies have […]

Both manufacturing and construction continue to contract

Both manufacturing and construction continue to contract  – by New Deal democrat As usual, we start the month with data on last month’s manufacturing activity, and the previous month’s construction activity. This month, both were negative. The ISM manufacturing index, which has had an excellent record as a leading indicator for the past 75 years, […]

Social Security Trustees’ Report Is Out So Is CRFB’s Analysis

Social Security Trustees’ Report Is Out So Is CRFB’s Analysis by Dale Coberly Look, I don’t like CRFB.  They claim to be the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), but in the years I have been watching them they have looked more like the Committee to Cut Social Security. Today my inbox presented me […]

Revisions to Q4 GDP made real final sales worse

Revisions to Q4 GDP made real final sales worse, a potential portent of near in time recession  – by New Deal democrat A month ago, following another blogger, I took a look at real final sales, and real final sales to domestic purchasers, in the GDP – which increased less than 0.5% and just above […]

Almost nobody is still getting laid off, but this week, it’s not good enough

Almost nobody is still getting laid off, but this week, it’s not good enough  – by New Deal democrat Today and tomorrow update the two remaining positive sectors of the economy: jobs and real personal income. And the first one continued to give excellent historical readings, but relatively speaking suffered in comparison to their all-time […]