Jobless claims: seasonality and neutrality continue – by New Deal democrat The week’s first meaningful data is jobless claims. These have been trending higher YoY, but with lots of seasonal noise. And that trend continued this week. Initial claims increased 6,000 to 223,000. The four-week moving average (especially more important right now to filter out […]
Even after all of the knowledge we have gained over the years, people still do silly things. Then they wonder why the issues by authorities about their actions. Bringing your loaded weapons (guns) to the airport even if it is in a suitcase. One example: Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport was ranked fourth in the nation for […]
– by New Deal democrat I don’t normally discuss movements in the stock and bond markets, but occasionally there are important paradigm shifts that can tell us a lot about the economy, and the last few months have been one of those times. The Federal Reserve began to cut interest rates on September 18th. What […]
It really happened. Screen shot at 00:06 January 19 2025
It tends to vary based upon a person’s experience with each profession. For example, what was it about? How did a person interact with the other? Was it positive or negative? What was the outcome? Was there a chance of a positive outcome? Did it have a financial outcome? Could the outcome have a positive […]
I write 15 hours before the TikTok ban. I know almost exactly nothing about Tik Tok (I just installed the app as an act of … well it might not be available the day after tomorrow). I know almost nothing about social media or modern tech. That never stopped me before. The story is that […]
Typically, when I post New Deal Democrat; I will have the link to the post at the end of his economic commentaries. I also include a link to a previous commentary of his of the same topic. New Deal democrat follows the ups, downs, and stagnation of his topics. It is more work. However. I […]
– by New Deal democrat Since I posted earlier about why I follow jobless claims so closely, let me briefly restate why I pay a lot of attention to real retail sales. Retail sales have been tracked for over 75 years. When they are lower YoY, that has historically been a good (not perfect) indicator […]
For much of the world, simply getting enough calories to sustain life is a daily challenge. Among the relatively affluent citizens in the west, wave after wave of dietary fashions encourage us to medicalize food. A recent example is the demonization of “processed” and “ultraprocessed” foods. This has been validated by the Trump nominee for […]
– by New Deal democrat December consumer prices indicate that we are leaving the immediate post-covid era and seeing a rebalancing of sectors, as sectors that declined sharply in the past several years rebound. As in November, the only two categories of “hot” numbers showing price increases of 4.0% a year or more are two […]