“A large, slow-moving gun fired at the economy and the bullet is still in the air” – by New Deal democrat A poster named Micah on Bluesky has written “the China tariffs were a large, slow-moving gun fired at the economy and the bullet is still in the air” By this, he is referring to the […]
– by New Deal democrat The housing market has historically been led by mortgage rates. And since those have been relatively rangebound for most of the past 2.5 years in the 6%-7% range, housing permits and starts have similarly followed. This morning those trends continued. Total permits (dark blue in the graph below) increased 23,000 on […]
That people in countries on the other side of our planet will suffer because of one person who despises their existence is tragic. I subscribe to The Bangkok Post because I worked there for weeks at a time also. It is a place of wealth and a place of poverty. A couple of dollars means […]
– by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims continued to be well-behaved last week. Per this morning’s report, they declined -9.000 to 215,000, while the four week moving average declined -2,500 to 220,750. With the typical one week delay, continuing claims increased 41,000 to 1.885 million – which, despite the big weekly increase, is right in […]
– by New Deal democrat The former King of Coincident Indicators, industrial production, has faded ever since the “China shock” at the beginning of the Millennium. Downturns in production almost always coincided with the onset of recessions beforehand. Since then, there have been several big downturns, in 2015-16, 2019, and a smaller one in 2023-24, […]
Long time acquaintance Steve Hutkins had this Washington Post article (taken from the archives) on his site from late March. It is an update at to where the privatization of the USPS status is today. To sum it up? It may be, the USPS is too big to swallow. Save The Post Office, Steve Hutkins […]
– by New Deal democrat Normally real retail sales is one of the indicators I treat as most important, because it tells us so much about consumer behavior, which is not only 70% of the economy, but also has a lengthy track record for leading both employment and the coincident indicators for recession. Not this […]
“‘Trump Tariff’ Surcharges Appearing on Customer Bills,” Watch: Amid escalating U.S. China trade tensions, American companies are adding explicit “Trump tariff” surcharges to bills to offset the impact of tariffs. Trump Changes Mind on Illegal Immigrants: “One of the things I am doing, though, is I’m also making it easier on the farmers and the […]
– by New Deal democrat Over the weekend, in my high frequency “Weekly Indicators” post, I wrote that in the past month, the bulk of the short leading indicators had turned from being positive to negative. Which of course raises the question, should I go on recession watch? To help resolve that, I took a […]
Small hospitals and rural hospitals have always had issues in providing healthcare to those citizens utilizing them. Many citizens lack healthcare insurance due to cost which is one factor. Overhead for having equipment to care for parents is costly. Then there is the issue of manpower to care for patients from nurses on up to […]