What to Do about Amazon I think Farhad Manjoo gets it right about Amazon: while the company’s sheer size, not to mention its often shady business practices, call out for public intervention, “Amazon is pushing a level of speed, convenience, and selection in shopping that millions of customers are integrating into their daily lives.” Breaking it up […]
December JOLTS report continues the trend of confusing jobs data The December JOLTS report came out this morning, and it continues the streak of confusing employment data. To recapitulate, the JOLTS report decomposes the jobs numbers into openings, hires, quits, layoffs and discharges, and total separations. Since the series is only 20 years old, however, […]
Why I expect further declines in manufacturing jobs This is the week I highlight further information from last Friday’s jobs report. One thing that struck me is that we’ve now had two months of declines in manufacturing jobs. This is something I have been anticipating since about the middle of last year, because the manufacturing […]
December 2012, Robert Reich wrote about America’s children . . . Remember the Children. “America’s children seem to be shortchanged on almost every issue we face as a society. Not only are we failing to protect our children from deranged people wielding semi-automatic guns. We’re not protecting them from poverty. The […]
by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for February 3 – 7 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. There were some changes in all of the timeframes this week. Of particular note, the coincident indicators of rail and steel, which were negative for almost all of 2019, have switched over to […]
January jobs report: why I am discounting the headline strong jobs number HEADLINES: +225,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate up +0.1% to 3.6% U6 underemployment rate up +0.2% from 6.7% to 6.9% Leading employment indicators of a slowdown or recession I am highlighting these because many leading indicators overall have strongly suggested that an […]
Is Iraq About To Switch From US to Russia? Today Juan Cole reports from a newspaper in Iraq that since Mohammed al-Allawi has become the new prime minister in Iraq, there has been a meeting in Baghdad between the Russian ambassador and the Iraqi milirary Chief of Staff, and the Iraqi president, Saleh, will be […]
Jobless claims continue to show a healthy economy I’ll keep this brief. This morning’s weekly report on initial jobless claims continues to show no danger of any imminent downturn. The weekly number was 202,000, close to its 50 year lows last year. The 4 week average was 211,750, also close to its recent 50 year […]
The Philly Fed state-by-state diffusion index of economic expansion This comes from the Philly Fed’s state-by-state coincident index, via Bill McBride. The graph below shows the number of states showing increasing economic activity: In December the number of states in expansion was 39. Historically over the past 40 years, that number dropping to 35 or […]
by New Deal democrat The long leading forecast up to 12 months Last week I posted my short term forecast through midyear. This morning my long term forecast through the 2nd half of 2020 was also posted at Seeking Alpha. As usual, clicking through and reading will help you see the longer term trends, and also […]