– by New Deal democrat Now that we have the very important personal income and spending data through November, here is a look at the widely acknowledged monthly indicators that the NBER has highlighted in determining whether the economy is continuing to expand, or is contracting. The below link includes nonfarm payrolls (blue), industrial production (red), […]

 – by New Deal democrat The news from this morning’s personal income and spending report for October and November was almost all good – with one major exception. To cut to the chase, real income rose slightly, but real spending rose substantially. Which, if you are following basic math, means that consumers dipped into their […]

 – by New Deal democrat We will get the very important personal income and spending updates for the government shutdown months later this morning, which should finally tell us whether or not there was a mini-recession during that time. In the meantime, let’s take our regular weekly look at jobless claims, as to which, to reiterate, […]

Another interesting piece by Federal Tax Policy Vice President Erica York at the Tax Foundation. One premise . . . “an analysis suggests the administration could replace 56% to 73% of IEEPA revenue using Section 122 tariffs.” Over the past week, we received final tariff collections data for 2025 from the Treasury Department, a new Beige Book from the Fed, and a […]

– by New Deal democrat Originally housing permits and starts through December were supposed to be updated this morning, but that has now been put off another week. In the meantime, we did get some data, albeit stale, about the important leading sector of construction, in the form of the construction spending report through October. And […]

A rerun of a S.S. commentary by Dale Coberly. “HOW TO PAY FOR SOCIAL SECURITY” was written by Dale Coberly and posted by Dan Crawford on Angry Bear September 9, 2010. Of course, Dan died as well as Bruce Webb, Dale retired from Angry Bear after doing years of excellent commentary, I have not talked […]

“Record low labor share: corporate profits are at their most extreme levels ever compared with nonsupervisory payrolls,”  – by New Deal democrat An I’ve read a few takes in the past week or so about the declining “labor share” of GDP. To cut to the chase, here’s a link to that exact graph:  In case you are […]

 – by New Deal democrat There’s no new data of note today or tomorrow, so in the meantime (aside from observing Martin Luther King’s birthday) let me take a look at a very important, if small piece of economic data: the “real” price of gas. Gas price shocks have been important precipitants of a number of […]

– by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. With the yield curve close to completely normal and mortgage rates at or near 3 year lows, and the housing market reacting to those, the longer range picture is improving. But what is going to drive (in more ways than one) the immediate […]

In an effort to extort Greenland from Denmark, Trump has ordered a 10% tariff on goods from EU nations that have opposed the US expropriation effort beginning in February. He has threatened to raise that to 25% if they don’t capitulate. A couple of points: • The tariffs are mostly a nothingburger for EU economies: […]