– by New Deal democrat Now that we are well past the Holidays, seasonality has settled down and so have the comparisons for jobless claims. Initial claims declined -7,000 to 213,000 last week, and the four-week average declined -1,000 to 216,000. With the usual one week delay, continued claims declined -36,000 to 1.850 million: On […]

Is there a self-enforcing budget deal with Trump? In yesterday’s column, Yglesias makes a critical observation:  “there is genuinely no point in negotiating a bipartisan appropriation bill if the president is going to ignore its terms. . . . the entire premise of a bipartisan spending deal is precisely that money will be spent on […]

Tariffs will drive prices higher on Rx drugs, our #1 import, GoozNews I was stunned this morning when I looked at the data. Drugs — the legal kind — are the U.S.’s single largest import category. The U.S. in the first 11 months of 2024 imported over $222 billion in pharmaceutical products, which includes both […]

People complain about the size of the Federal Government, its costs and taxes, and how the size of it infringes upon the nation’s economy. Complaining of the size of government, Grover Norquist once said, “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into […]

January CPI: a new paradigm, with the reappearance of some old suspects  – by New Deal democrat Needless to say, January’s increase of 0.5% in consumer prices was not welcome. And there was a changing of the guard somewhat, as several of the old suspects (food and energy) made new appearances. Some of the spike […]

I am finding there are a greater degree of politics going on in economic commentaries. Maybe it was always there and I was just missing it? A bit of Paul Krugman this Wednesday morning on Global Trade and Tariffs. Trump’s threatens countries with tariffs if they do not bow to him and do as he […]

GDP Grows 2.3 Percent, Led by a Big Jump in Durable Good Sales, CEPR The economy grew at a 2.3 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, somewhat less than had generally been expected. However the reason for the miss was a sharp slowing in inventory growth, which subtracted 0.93 percentage points from GDP for […]

 – by New Deal democrat While we are waiting for new economic data tomorrow, let me pick up on an issue I closed with yesterday: while manufacturing has turned down, goods production in the US economy is being held up by construction, and in particular residential construction. Given the severe hike in mortgage rates as well […]

I spent many hours in airplanes flying to different countries or just other parts of the United States. Never gave it much thought as to safety as everything inside the plane was secure. We buckled up, grabbed a book to read, did some work, or slept for a few hours. Unknowingly, there has always been […]

Ten Days later and I am just catching up on this. Typing on a new computer now, I was hoping to transfer all of my old files on to this one. Hard drive on the old one is limping along. I still do not have an update. Anyway, some Claudia Sahm to peak your interest. […]