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

Notes on the June JOLTS report: weakness but no imminent downturn

Notes on the June JOLTS report: weakness but no imminent downturn I’m still on vacation, so continue to expect light posting. But I thought I’d take a look at the one piece of data that came out this week, the June JOLTS report. First of all, the “hiring leads firing” mantra continues to be true: […]

Scenes from the July employment report

Scenes from the July employment report First things first: I’m on a vacation for part of this week, so don’t be surprised if there are no postings for a few days. The July employment report continued a string of good headline numbers with weak leading internals. Let’s take a look. In the good news department, […]

Free Market Government

This post will be especially confused. I am thinking about cash bail and how it is unacceptable that richer people have more liberty than poorer people. For some reason my thoughts turned to Jeffrey Epstein currently held without bail, because of course. Now he hasn’t been convicted yet, and I do support the 5th and […]

The housing choke collar

The housing choke collar I have a new post up at Seeking Alpha, discussing how, even though sales went down last year, and have already bottomed, house prices have as usual, followed into decline with a lag. Beyond that, I discuss the concept of a “housing choke collar,’ similar to the “oil choke collar” I used […]

June 2019 personal income and spending

June 2019 personal income and spending The wage-earner/consumer remains in decent shape, and a lack of inflation (continued low gas prices!) continues to be able to hide a multitude of sins. That’s the message from this morning’s June report for personal income and spending. Nominally, income rose +0.4%, while spending rose +0.3%. Since inflation as […]

A Serious Problem For Dems

A Serious Problem For Dems It is that progressive Dems some time ago glommed onto the idea that protectionism is “progressive.”  It has been going on so long and has become so ingrained that Bernie Sanders has been running around bragging about how he is more protectionist than Trump.  Elizabeth Warren has been a bit […]

Barro’s Misstated Case for Federal Reserve Independence

Barro’s Misstated Case for Federal Reserve Independence I guess I should applaud Robert Barro for standing up for the independence of the Federal Reserve and hoping it can resist political pressure to lower interest rates too much. But there are two aspects of his case that strike me as silly to say the least starting with his […]