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

Initial jobless claims: still elevated compared with several months ago, another negative jobs report for January a possibility

Initial jobless claims: still elevated compared with several months ago, another negative jobs report for January a possibility Initial jobless claims this week came within a hair of meeting my criteria for a change to an upward trend.  On a unadjusted basis, new jobless claims declined by 151,303 to 960,668. Seasonally adjusted claims also declined […]

NFIB small business optimism vs. reality

(Better late than never…Dan) This is a really slow news week – on the economy!  My retrospective on the Trump Presidency is nearly complete and will be published tomorrow morning. In the meantime, here is a brief note on the Small Business Optimism index which was updated for December last week, showing a steep decline […]

Debt and Taxes III

I don’t know if I should try to make my contributions to AngryBear a noahpinion sub substack or if I should put this over at my personal blog, but I am always stimulated by Noah’s posts . His most recent “No one knows how much the government can borrow” is on a topic I’ve mentioned […]

“Those who cannot see must feel:” a retrospective on the Trump presidency

Four years ago I wrote “Those Who Cannot See Must Feel,” which is the (quote)“translation of an old German saying that I used to hear from my grandmother when I misbehaved.  It is pretty clear that, over the next four years, the American public is going to do a lot of feeling .…  The results […]

Will North Korea Explode After Biden Becomes President?

Will North Korea Explode After Biden Becomes President?  This is what was forecast in a column in the Washington Post by Victor Cha. He sees a combination of economic collapse, a massive spread of Covid-19, and a standard desire when a new US president to enter the office to be behind a possible outbreak of […]

Debt and Taxes II

This is an extended post on the caveat to debt and taxes 1. It is joint work with Brad DeLong and Barbara Annicchiarico. The point is that, in his Presidential Address, Olivier Blanchard notes that the argument that higher debt causes increased welfare is weaker than the argument that it is feasible. The Treasury can […]

Good news (industrial production) and bad news (retail sales)

Good news (industrial production) and bad news (retail sales) This morning’s two reports on industrial production and retail sales for December were a case of good news and bad news. Let’s do the good news first. Industrial production, the King of Coincident Indicators, rose 1.6% in December. The manufacturing component rose by 1.0%. Needless to […]

Debt and Taxes I

There might be such a thing as a free lunch. There will soon be a Democrat in the White House and Republicans will soon rediscover their hatred of deficits (which were no problem when they were cutting taxes on firms and rich individuals). We are going to read a lot of arguments about irresponsibly burdening […]