A follow-up on the reasons for prime age labor force non-participation Here is something interesting I found in an article by staffers at the Kansas City Fed a couple of weeks ago. They broke down the 25-54 prime age labor force participation group for men into 10 year slices, by education, and by reason for […]
An update on yield curve dynamics So I submitted this wonderful piece to Seeking Alpha Tuesday morning, and figured I would just link to it today. But as in the best laid plans of mice and men, somehow it reverted to a draft without ever being reviewed by the site’s editors, which means it isn’t […]
New home sales bombed in September Needless to say, this morning’s report on new home sales was another big miss in the housing sector. Not only were sales a new 12 month low, they were the lowest in nearly 2 years, and are off over -150,000 from their peak 10 months ago: Typically new home […]
Jargon is a heck of a drug: If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. The discourse of global warming/climate change is lousy with jargon. This rampant obfuscation gives science […]
Tracking Trump’s tariffs: US vs. Canadian rail loads Let me start out by saying that there is an excellent case for the US imposing a VAT (“value added tax”) similar to those enacted by Canada and European countries in order to recapture the losses due to far lower wages in China and other developing countries. […]
Fiscal Dishonesty from Paul Ryan (Surprise!) We earlier noted that when our Treasury Secretary wrote this: Government receipts totaled $3,329 billion in FY 2018. This was $14 billion higher than in FY 2017, an increase of 0.4 percent…Outlays were $4,108 billion, $127 billion above those in FY 2017, a 3.2 percent increase. He was basically lying to […]
After instituting a $1.5 trillion tax cut and after signing off on a $675 billion Defense budget, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said yesterday, Tuesday, October 16, 2016; “The only way to lower the record-high federal deficit would be to cut entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.” More McConnell: “It’s disappointing but it’s […]
Fiscal Dishonesty from CNBC and Our Treasury Secretary Is Jacob Pramuk on the White House payroll? US budget deficit expands to $779 billion in fiscal 2018 as spending surges. The federal budget deficit rose 17 percent in fiscal 2018, according to the Trump administration. Spending jumped, and revenue only increased slightly following the GOP tax cuts. The […]
Subdued September inflation means real hourly and aggregate wages grow Courtesy of subdued gas price increases this year vs. one year ago, overall consumer prices rose only 0.1% in September vs. 0.5% one year ago (and 0.3% over the last two months vs. 0.9% one year ago). As a result, YoY CPI growth is down […]
Housing’s most difficult comparisons in years begin next Wednesday After a real quiet week for news, next week we get retail sales, industrial production, the JOLTS report, existing home sales … and housing permits and starts. The week after, real residential fixed investment will be reported as part of Q3 GDP. Permits and residential fixed […]