Initial and continuing jobless claims: back to being “less awful” This morning’s initial and continued jobless claims resume the trend of “less awful” numbers. New jobless claims fell to under 1,000,000 for the first time on an un-adjusted basis – 984,192, to be specific (gold in the graph below). After seasonal adjustment, they declined 249,000 […]
July jobs report: a very good *relative* gain – perhaps the last HEADLINES: 1,763,000 million jobs gained. Together with the gains of May and June, this makes up about 42% of the 22.1 million job losses in March and April. U3 unemployment rate declined -0.9% from 11.1% to 10.2%, compared with the January low of 3.5%. […]
If not the US, who? In order to get it right, it is so important that we know what is going on now. In the midst of a pandemic, overpopulated, ever more marginalized by Global Warming, beggared with inequality, and sorely lacking leadership; the world is indeed going to hell in a handbasket. Take a […]
How To Measure Quarterly Changes In GDP Can Make A Big Difference We have had dramatic headlines and commentary in recent days since the BEA issued its initial estimate of quarterly changes in GDP, which they do not officially measure on an shorter time period. This is a measure of the average GDP in one […]
With a minimum of editing or preface, I am reposting this one from February 2009. Next year will be the bicentennial of the publication this astonishing but undeservedly obscure pamphlet. One “event” that I am conducting to celebrate the anniversary is posting of around 65 questions that I have mined from the text. I hope […]
by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for July 27 – 31 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The two most noteworthy short leading indicators, stock prices and initial jobless claims, have started to go in two different directions in the past several weeks. As always, clicking over and reading should […]
Q2 GDP does not bode well for early 2021 There are two components of quarterly GDP that are long leading indicators, giving us information about the economy 12 months from now. If you think, as I do, that it is likely there will be a new Administration in Washington next year, which will competently follow […]
Fear and Loathing On the 17 July 2020, episode of Counterspin, Fair’s Janine Jackson interviewed True North Research’s Lisa Graves about attacks on the US Postal Service. ‘A Combination of Forces Puts Our Postal Service at Grave Risk‘ Jackson leads off talking about the recent appointment of Louis DeJoy, a big Trump donor, to be […]
Catching up with wages, income, and layoffs Yesterday and today have seen several significant data releases. Let’s catch up. Wages The Employment Cost Index was released for Q2 this morning. This is a particularly important release because unlike the monthly “average hourly wages” number, this report normalizes by job category, e.g., it compares clerks’ wages […]
A Republican Idea for Onshoring Pharmaceutical Intangible Assets Alex Parker reports on a proposal from Representative Darin LaHood: As part of the next round of pandemic relief, House Republicans are pushing new incentives for companies to bring home offshore intellectual property — something that they contend could boost job growth but that critics see as another […]