When I was a graduate student, it wasn’t unusual to do a postdoc in the UK or in Europe. If you wanted a permanent position in the US, though, this meant you’d have to do a second postdoc back in the US. I know of several people who took this path. Now, thanks to the […]

 – by New Deal democrat This week’s look at initial jobless claims includes seasonal revisions made to the data for the last five years. Fortunately, they appear to be very minor. So let’s take our typical look. On a weekly basis, initial claims declined -1,000 to 224,000, and the four week moving average declined -4,750 to […]

 – by New Deal democrat Last week I explored how past episodes of sharp increases in politic uncertainty, and decreases in consumer confidence, had played out in the hard data as to both production and consumption. The upshot was that consumers tended to react first, with about a one quarter delay, and producers tended to […]

The housing market continues its slow rebalancing: new and existing home sales rangebound, price pressures including Case Shiller and FHFA steady  – by New Deal democrat Since new home sales as well as the repeat sales price indexes were both reported this morning, let’s update the entire housing market all at once, including existing home sales, […]

A “quick and dirty” update: the employment is historically very weak  – by New Deal democrat There’s no significant economic reports today, and even most of the high frequency indicators won’t start coming in for the week until tomorrow, so let me go a little more in depth in what the “quick and dirty” forecasting model […]

If I were Matt Taibbi’s prof, I’d give him a C for his article. He did some research on endowments, but he gives no useful context. Whatever Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post paid him, it was too much. The Trump Administration wants to use taxes on endowments to subsidize tax cuts to the 1% who […]

Economy is cooling from its above-trend pace, but the labor market remains healthy, and a manufacturing recovery is underway A brief and general review of the investing market by Edward Jones. The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index (LEI) — which provides an early indication of significant turning points in the business cycle as well as […]

Plastics Targeted by Retaliatory EU Tariffs Sixty US plastics resin and product exports to the EU could be hit as a countermeasure to US tariffs on steel and aluminum. Sixty plastic products exported by the US could be hit with retaliatory tariffs by the European Union (EU), analysis by the Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS) reveals. […]

America’s colleges are hoarding billions, Matt Taibbi New York Post Of Colleges and Universities A short trip on the JHU site later I found myself at the Johns Hopkins Public Interest Investment Committee annual report, published in January.  There, I learned that “as of June 2024, JHU’s endowment comprised more than 4,700 funds, each supporting […]

Trump says “tariff” is a beautiful word. Maybe for him, but not for American companies and consumers. “Walmart thought it could use its immense power as America’s biggest retailer to make Chinese suppliers eat the cost of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. But Walmart got a response it’s not accustomed to hearing: No. “Trump has slapped […]