Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Weekly Indicators for September 27 – October 1 at Seeking Alpha

 by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for September 27 – October 1 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Commodity prices and transportation costs continue to soar, and there are even signs of further acceleration. If you go by the regional Fed reports, it is beginning to affect manufacturing. If you […]

House prices continue to surge. But maybe . . .

House prices continue to surge. But maybe . . . Both the FHFA and Case-Shiller house price indexes for July were released this morning. Both showed a continued surge in house prices, with one difference that may be of importance. First, here are both indexes normed to 100 as of January 1991, when the FHFA […]

Climate change and insurance markets: let’s focus on real solutions, not finger-wagging

I don’t know why I’m writing about this when our democracy is on fire.  Maybe I need to focus on something cheery, like climate change. The American Prospect has a couple of pieces up on insurance and climate change.  One identifies a genuine issue, the other misses the mark. In this piece, Alexander Sammon asks […]

Joe Manchin believes Income Inequality is not a problem

Does Joe Manchin Believe That Income Inequality Is a Problem?, Horizons, Nancy LeTourneau’s big picture looks at politics and life Nancy was one of the regular writers at Washington Monthly. She had well – written fun reads, some of which I disagreed with in my numerical way. I am a numbers guy. The editors of […]

Fed’s Powell Sees Agriculture Inflation Continuing

Agri-Economist and farmer Michael Smith talking inflationary impacting crops and farmers. Higher inflation rates “will likely remain so in the coming months,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell acknowledged today in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. Powell has been in meeting this week discussing the persistent inflation going into next year.  Powell noted the effects […]

Durable Goods: Orders Up 1.8%, Shipments Down 0.5%, Inventories Up 0.8%

Blogger RJS,@ Market Watch 666, “August Durable Goods: New Orders Up 1.8%, Shipments Down 0.5%, Inventories Up 0.8%“ The Advance Report on Durable Goods Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories and Orders for August (pdf) from the Census Bureau reported that the value of the widely watched new orders for manufactured durable goods increased by $4.6 billion or 1.8 percent […]

The producer portion of the economy continues to do well

The producer portion of the economy continues to do well First, a little blogging note. This week is light on data. House prices tomorrow, jobless claims Thursday, then a bunch of month end/beginning data on Friday. In other words, don’t be surprised if I take a day off. This morning the report on durable goods […]

Means-testing the Child Tax Credit

Matt Yglesias has published an interesting essay at his substack by Simon Bazelon and David Shor arguing that Democrats should introduce stricter means testing into the Child Tax Credit. Their key points are as follows: The current CTC design already has means-testing for very high incomes, which means that the administrative burdens associated with means-testing […]

Addendum to US crude supplies at 35 month low

Addendum to US crude supplies at 35 month low; Total oil and product supplies at 6 1/2 year low – Angry Bear (angrybearblog.com) by RJS Authors of Angry Bear Posts and I converse from time to time. We talk about what they write, what its content implies, and what they are thinking. This note came […]

Job Growth Twice as Fast in States Retaining UI

August Job Growth Was Twice as Fast in States That Retained UI – “People’s Policy Project,” Matt Bruenig, September 21, 2021 I ran across this author and his site while reading a commentary (referencing Matt Bruenig’s story) on McDonalds experience in Denmark at Yves Smith’s Naked Capitalism. Since my background over 40 odd years has […]