by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for March 14 – 18 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The economic indicators are coming under pressure from both ends. The long leading indicators are being buffetted by inflation and the Fed, as interest rates generally rise, and the yield curve gets very […]
Really Awful “Rhetoric” “Rhetoric” in quotes because it may not be just that. I have not been posting much, partly because I had a wedding for daughter, Sasha, last weekend, but also because I am seriously demoralized by the current situation, and every time I think I have something intelligent to say about the economics […]
RJS, Focus on Fracking, Commercial crude supply rise as SPR falls to 19½ year low, total oil + products supply at new 95 month low; exports of distillates at a 20-month high after largest drop in domestic demand in 18 months The Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA US oil data […]
Recently, we have learned that the Russian military is vastly less capable than anyone imagined. Also, in three whole weeks, Ukrainians have markedly reduced the capabilities of the Russian military. Therefore, naturally many governments (including the German government) have decided they must spend more on their militaries to face the Russian threat. This makes no […]
Housing permits and starts: still an economic positive – for the moment As you know, I consider housing, and in particular single-family housing permits, one of the very best long leading indicators for the economy. In the past year, however, there has been a unique divergence between housing permits and housing starts, necessitating some adjustments. […]
Industrial production nowcasts that the economy continues to perform well Industrial production increased in February by 0.5%, its highest reading ever with the exception of two months in 2014, and the second half of 2018. Manufacturing production increased 1.2%, also its highest ever with the exception of 24 months from late 2006 through early 2008: […]
Coronavirus dashboard for March 18: the BA.2 variant behaves just like original Omicron In the last several days, the 7 day average of cases in the US has increased slightly from 30,700 to 32,700. The rate of decline w/w has decelerated to only 10%. Meanwhile, deaths have finally declined to slightly below 1000 at 995. […]
On that “deep feeling that something is wrong…” Georg Simmel called it “a faint sense of tension and vague longing” connected with the modern preponderance of means over ends. What Simmel calls estrangement [We] feel as if the whole meaning of our existence were so remote that we are unable to locate it and are […]
Time was when being able to read and write was good enough to meet the demands of industry. After a while, workers needed to have an eighth grade, then a high school education to be of much value. That was then, back before the world became complicated. Today, in order to understand what is going […]
Yet another new 50+ year low in continuing jobless claims After 3 days of a data desert, today there is a cornucopia of data: not just initial claims, but housing starts and permits, and industrial production as well. On top of that, a large stretch of the yield curve in the bond market is close […]