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

Jobless claims: close but no cigar for the red flag

Jobless claims: close but no cigar for the red flag  – by New Deal democrat Initial claims declined -9,000 to 228,000 last week, and the four week average declined -9,250 to 237,500. Continuing claims, with a one week delay, rose 33,000 to 1.754 million: More importantly for forecasting purposes, initial claims are up 7.0% YoY, the […]

Considering Alternatives to Patent Monopoly Financing of Drug Development

There is more to this story than just making technology open to the public so others can manufacturer it. Think about what is being said here. The manufacture of face masks went overseas. When many were needed, foreign manufacture could not keep up and the prices were ridiculous. We are in a situation of whether […]

June housing report: a tale a two diametrically opposed sectors

June housing report: a tale a two diametrically opposed sectors  – by New Deal democrat Yesterday I wrote that housing under construction, along with new vehicle sales, were two important reasons that no economic downturn had occurred yet. Today’s report on housing construction for June showed two almost diametrically opposed trends: single family houses had […]

Deficits, Debts, Surpluses, Borrowing, Budgets, etc. Processes

Federal Budget, Why Should you Care About the Federal Budget, (nationalpriorities.org) It appears, we need to better understand what we are talking about. Or at least establish a foundation for our words which I believe we take for granted. I took the liberty of pulling this up from a site. It is pretty basic. Borrowing […]

Some Healthcare Detail on costs, smoke, and morphine.

Three healthcare issues that are relevant to today. Things we should be talking about. If you remember Merrill Gooz had a chart up showing healthcare costs have been around 17%. For more than a decade, CMS and CBO consistently overestimated the growth in health care spending, which undermines efforts to spend more on health-related social […]

Industrial and manufacturing production continue to falter

Industrial and manufacturing production continue to falter  – by New Deal democrat I frequently call industrial production the King of Coincident Indicators, because so often the turning point in this metric has been at the peaks and troughs of the economy as a whole. That has not been the case since last September, when this […]

June retail sales continue to falter, with the important exception of motor vehicles

June retail sales continue to falter, with the important exception of motor vehicles  – by New Deal democrat As usual, retail sales is one of my favorite indicators, because it tells us so much about the 70% of the US economy that is consumption, as well as being a short leading indicator for employment. It […]

US: Nonprofit Hospitals Chase Low-Income Patients on Debts

This is more of an introduction to the Human Right Watch Org and the review of healthcare in the United States. The topic is no surprise as we have touched upon this in earlier commentaries. In this short piece they are finding private nonprofit hospitals are not so nonprofit. Indeed, they are skimping on healthcare […]

New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators for July 10 – 14

Weekly Indicators for July 10 – 14 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Several indicators that had been stubbornly positive throughout the decline in leading metrics as of this past week finally turned either neutral or negative. Much as the dominant punditry at the moment is […]