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

About the April JOLTS report: hiring and quitting remain very, very good

 – by New Deal democrat I’ll write about today’s ISM non-manufacturing report later, but first I wanted to follow up with several more graphs based on yesterday’s JOLTS labor report for April. Basically, I didn’t want to leave the impression that the labor market was in any way sub-par based on those numbers. With that […]

April JOLTS report: firming in hires, quits, and a (good) decline in layoffs, while “fictitious” job openings continue their slide

 – by New Deal democrat The JOLTS report for April showed most metrics rebounding slightly from March lows, with the exception of the “soft data” job openings. The overall picture is that hiring is weak relative to the past five years, but so are layoffs, and voluntary quits are equally relatively strong, balancing them out. […]

Is 3D printing the answer to the housing crisis?

In a rebuke to the standard economic model that demand drives supply, housing prices in the US these days continue to rise. How much of this is due to local regulation vs cost of new home construction is above my pay grade. But the claim is that 3D printed homes can mitigate shortages in affordable […]

May new manufacturing orders slide, truck sales rise, construction spending close to unchanged

 – by New Deal democrat As usual, the month starts out with important data on manufacturing and construction. The news was mixed this month and weighted more to the downside in my opinion. First, the ISM report on manufacturing declined again slightly to 48.7. This is the second month in a row that this index […]

An update on USPS service performance in Georgia

Steve Hutkins of Save the Post Office giving an update on Louis Dejoy’s Delivering for America Plan. The expectation has been to cut costs through minimizing operations by moving mail between regional centers and delivering to fewer Post Offices. So far in Georgia and in particular Atlanta, the plan has not been working as well […]

Slight increasing trend in initial jobless claims, but continuing claims continue slightly lower

 – by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims rose 3,000 last week to 219,000. More importantly, the 4 week moving average rose another 2,500 to 222,500, the highest level in 9 months. With the usual one week lag, continuing claims rose 4,000 to 1.791 million: On the one hand, it does appear that claims have been […]