– by New Deal democrat My theme for the past several years as to employment has been “deceleration,” as in a gradual cooldown from white hot to red hot to hot to warm. But at some point past “warm,” we get to lukewarm, and then cool, and then chilly. In other words, if it continues […]

This is probably one of those boring commentaries which does not have many exciting issues which catch an Angry Bear reader’s eye. Yes and no to the premise. Just a question though: How is it, the richest nation in the world having one $300+ billionaire and many more billionaires also has so many homeless people […]

Jobless claims still rocked by seasonality; native born unemployment rate of under 4% forecast  – by New Deal democrat Due to today’ official Day of Mourning for the late President Jimmy Carter, initial and continuing claims were released yesterday, but since I didn’t cover it then, let’s catch up now on the normal day. It […]

This is a good take on the percentage of debt many homeowners are carrying as a percentage of GDP. I would think somewhere along the line, individual income plays a role in all of his. What Bill is telling us is the same hazards of lending are not as pronounced this time. Either banks, etc. […]

I grew up in the city of Chicago. Up until the time I left high school, I was not driving a car many places. I did not have a car until later and was stuck with my dad’s 64 Ford Fairlane Station wagon. It was huge and an unimpressive family car. I took the CTA […]

The right-wing mantra is that private enterprise is always more efficient than government. As far as I can tell, private enterprise is more efficient at extracting dollars from citizens, yes. And banks have proven to be efficient at extracting bail-outs when their judgement leads to insolvency. Recently, the bankruptcy of for-profit Steward Health Care closed […]

1st Look at Local Housing Markets in December – by Bill McBride Calculated Risk Newsletter NOTE: The tables for active listings, new listings and closed sales all include a comparison to December 2019 for each local market (some 2019 data is not available). This is the first look at several early reporting local markets in […]

Truck sales sound a warning  – by New Deal democrat Twenty years ago Prof. Edward Leamer made a big splash with a speech to the Fed in which he proclaimed that “Housing IS the Business Cycle,” highlighting how downturns in the housing sector tended to lead recessions by an average of 7 quarters. For today’s […]

Economically weighted ISM indexes for December forecast continued expansion  – by New Deal democrat We got two significant economic releases this morning. First, let’s take a look at the ISM services index. I’ll examine the November JOLTS report separately. Recall that services are about 75% of the economy. Thus, even if goods production is contracting, […]

November JOLTS report adds to the data showing continued labor market deterioration  – by New Deal democrat The second of this morning’s reports was the JOLTS survey for November.  Like many other statistics concerning jobs, the JOLTS series have been deceleration for several years. The question now is whether they level off or continue to […]