Existing home sales and prices decline; plus, a closer look at multi-unit housing construction – by New Deal democrat I will keep my comments on December existing home sales and prices brief. That’s because, even though they make up about 90% of the total market, they have much less economic impact than new home construction. […]
I can not say I have been exposed to any of this switcheroo as my meds are older technology. We are also on regular Medicare and not Medicare Advantage. I have a larger say with the former. Part D works mostly except the pharmacies in my area are less helpful than they were in Michigan. […]
The actual Big News in this morning’s housing report was – positive – by New Deal democrat For the second month in a row, the biggest news in the housing report was not in the headlines. Most of what you are going to read is about how bad housing permits and starts were, and that […]
Jobless claims continue their string of good news – by New Deal democrat If yesterday’s economic data was bad, this morning’s was considerably better (I’ll post on housing construction later). Initial jobless claims declined 15,000 to 195,000, tied for their best number in almost 8 months. The 4 week moving average declined 6,500 to 206,000, […]
And the King of Coincident Indicators rolls over – by New Deal democrat This morning’s second big – and big negative – report was for industrial production, the King of Coincident Indicators (I call it so because historically, it more often than not marks the exact month +/-1 that a recession begins or ends). In […]
December real retail sales: the worst in almost two years – by New Deal democrat Real retail sales, one of my favorite indicators, was updated this morning for December, and it was significant. It’s not just that retail sales declined -1.1% for the month both in nominal and real terms; it’s that both October and […]
“Job Market’s 2.6 Million Missing People Unnerves Star Harvard Economist,” (msn.com), Ben Steverman Originally in a comment in this post Discussion on Solutions to Social Security, Angry Bear. The number I had originally calculated was ~2.6 million people joining the Civilian Labor Force. I had said: Since you addressed me, what group is dropping out […]
Why the Fed’s present rate hike campaign is almost unprecedented – by New Deal democrat Just how unprecedented is the Fed’s current rate hike policy? Since the Fed started actively managing the Fed Funds rate in the late 1950s, only two other occasions are similar. The reason the Fed is hiking rates is to combat […]
The important trend in retail sales that Redbook’s weekly report is telling us about – by New Deal democrat This is the first of hopefully two posts I will put up today. Tomorrow retail sales for December will be reported. In advance of that, I wanted to discuss their comparison with the weekly high-frequency data […]
Article Author April M. Short, an editor, journalist, and documentary editor and producer. Presently she is a writing fellow at Local Peace Economy, a project of the Independent Media Institute. Previously, she served as a managing editor at AlterNet as well as an award-winning senior staff writer for Santa Cruz, California’s weekly newspaper. Her work has […]