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

March jobs report: leading sectors turn down, pre-recessionary report still quite positive

March jobs report: leading sectors turn down in a pre-recessionary, but still quite positive, report  – by New Deal democrat Unsurprisingly, my focus on this report, like the last few reports, was on whether residential construction jobs turned negative or not, whether manufacturing and temporary jobs continued on their downward trajectory, and whether the deceleration […]

Overdue Selection of Stuff from My In-Box

The Overdue Selection of Stuff from My In-Box. Some days are good at Angry Bear. Getting a background in how to run a Blog by myself at this time. Sometimes run out of ideas. Fortunately, I have good influx of articles hitting my In-Box daily. I recently cleaned out a couple of thousand emails going […]

The last positive leading indicator, Revisions causes initial claims to capitulate

Revisions cause initial claims, the last positive leading indicator, to capitulate  – by New Deal democrat Initial and continuing claims underwent some serious revisions with this week’s release. Rather than attempt an explanation myself, here is the nub of the BLS’s own explanation: Beginning … [this week], the methodology used to seasonally adjust the national […]

Stand Aside Millennials, Baby Boomer homebuying bonanza

Except for the beginning, mostly a copy and paste here. Housing is an issue in the U.S. There are not many appropriately priced house being built or used ones on the market. The same holds true for apartments. We have a lot of young families trying to figure out where to live. Then once they […]

One of the last of the positive short-leading indicators rolls over

One of the last of the positive short leading indicators rolls over  – by New Deal democrat The only economic release today of any significance was the ISM non-manufacturing index, which tracks services. It is only about 25 years old, and is not a leading indicator the way its sibling manufacturing index is, but for […]

Since January 6, How Far Has America Come?

April 3, 2023, Letters from an American, Prof. Heather Cox Richardson. On Saturday, April 1, the emergency measures Congress put in place to extend medical coverage at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic expired. This means that states can end Medicaid coverage for people who do not meet the pre-pandemic eligibility requirements, which are based […]

February JOLTS report shows further relative weakening in the jobs market

February JOLTS report shows further *relative* weakening in the jobs market  – by New Deal democrat The February JOLTS report showed a weakening in almost all important trends. The strongest component of the entire series has been job openings. I tend to place lower significance on this, because there is ample evidence that companies have […]

Swiss claim U.S. banking crisis toppled Credit Suisse

Up to 35,000 UBS and Credit Suisse jobs at risk, SWI swissinfo.ch The megabank created by the UBS takeover of Credit Suisse is reducing its global workforce by 20-30% or between 25,000 to 36,000 positions. This is according to the  Sonntags Zeitung newspaper, citing an unnamed senior UBS manager. This was interesting in the US. According […]

National Foreign Direct Investment Data

National FDI Data Detail Just some Information to throw around. Ten States Leading America’s FDI Manufacturing Workforce, globalbusiness.org and here National FDI Data – GBA globalbusiness.org (see chart to the right). The article declares there are ten states which are benefiting the most from Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). This is taken from a pitch in […]

Both manufacturing and construction continue to contract

Both manufacturing and construction continue to contract  – by New Deal democrat As usual, we start the month with data on last month’s manufacturing activity, and the previous month’s construction activity. This month, both were negative. The ISM manufacturing index, which has had an excellent record as a leading indicator for the past 75 years, […]