– by New Deal democrat I suspect we will look back on this morning’s report on jobless claims as the first concrete sign of impending recession. Initial claims rose 18,000 to 241,000, the highest since February 22. The four week moving average rose 5,500 to 226,000. With the usual one week lag, continuing claims rose 83,000 […]
Some detail on Trump’s Car Tariffs. Still not a lot of detail. This is what was proposed. Even with a cut back in the tariff, prices will increase. The threat may and probably will make a great excuse for a price increase also. Oh, we brought this one in early so as to avoid the […]
– by New Deal democrat Aside from the long leading indicators I discussed in that post, GDP is a look in the rear view mirror, because it includes January and February. Personal income and spending for March, although it is part of that GDP report, is therefore more current. Like the housing data we got earlier […]
– by New Deal democrat The big headline takeaway in today’s advance report on Q1 GDP, besides the -0.3% number, was that imports deducted about -5.0% on an annualized basis, overcoming a fairly strong 3.0% contribution in real terms from consumer spending. Here’s the breakout graph from the BEA: The graph tells the story; both real […]
Steve Greenhouse, “Trump’s second term will be the worst presidential term ever,” as featured by The Guardian. Going on 4 months or 120 days if one is counting days. As a nation, we are experiencing the worst episode within this nation ever imagined. No war, outbreak, recession, or even the Great Depression has threatened us […]
Trump claims his tariffs will bring manufacturing jobs back to the US. But you can’t create manufacturing jobs if no one wants to buy what you make. How’s that going? “Euro zone consumers are happy to ditch U.S. products if they are hit by tariffs in the course of a tit-for-tat trade war with U.S. […]
A bit of recent history for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Each week we send more than 50,000 complaints about financial products and services to companies for response. If another agency would be better able to assist, we’ll send it to them and let you (the consumer) know. Most companies respond within 15 days. […]
I am not sure if people know what the Jolts Report is. So, I will offer up a descriptive definition; The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) program of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) produces monthly and annual estimates of job openings, hires, and separations for the nation. The JOLTS program also produces monthly state estimates for […]
Late and brief thoughts on Trump’s assault on the independence of the Fed. It’s old news.now, but one way in which Trump assaulted norms, shocked investors, then flinched when asset prices moved was his discussion of firing the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. To orthodox macroeconomists and also me this is an extreme heresy. […]
Look, tariffs are just consumption taxes. American consumers pay for tariffs on Chinese goods, not the Chinese government, businesses or people. Trump pretends that exporting countries pay our tariffs. If he really believed that, he’d be happy to see Amazon post how much China is paying to get their goods into our market. But when […]