by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for December 20 – 24 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Surprisingly, so far the Omicron variant has had no deleterious effect on any of the data, and in particular, on restaurant reservations. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to […]
November Durable Goods: New Orders up 2.5%, Shipments Up 0.7%, Inventories Up 0.6%, MarketWatch 666, RJS The Advance Report on Durable Goods Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories and Orders for November (pdf) from the Census Bureau reported that the value of the widely watched new orders for manufactured durable goods increased by $6.5 billion or 2.5 percent to […]
Income, spending, layoffs, and new home sales all point to a continuing expansion in 2022 We got our last batch of data before Christmas this morning. Almost all of the news was positive. I will be very brief.In the “coincident indicators” department, real personal income declined -0.2%, while real personal consumption expenditures increased less than […]
It’s A Wonderful Life: Faux Populism Somewhere I never saw a full version of this classic, Its a Wonderful Life, but here it is on Christmas Eve, an official Christmas classic. I was always suspicious of it, from all I had heard, but it looks less worth than I had heard. I mean, really, local […]
The conversation started with my investment person about two particulars which I was curious as to what he was expecting in returns. Those two were losing somewhat over the last 5 months. Excitedly, he started off on how the Fed was going to rein in inflation. I listened and answered. However you do it, raising […]
If Barkley is writing about it, it warrants space on AB. RIP Sharon L. O’Hare, Econospeak, Barley Rosser I know, I know, my part of this blog is increasingly resembling an obituary column. But, heck, people I know who are conneted to econ keep dying, although this one was not as well known as others. […]
Record 9.6% Annual Increase in November Producer Price Index; Record 6.9% YoY Increase in Core Prices; Record 7.1% YoY Increase for Final Demand Services, Record 14.9% Increase for Final Demand Goods, and a 46+ year Record for Prices of Intermediate Goods, RJS, MarketWatch 666 The seasonally adjusted Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand rose 0.8% in […]
Final existing home sales report of 2021 is positive As we wind down the year, most of the remaining data will be from the housing sector. Tomorrow we get new home sales, then next week one final round of house price indexes. These summers are hot and long, and if you don’t have Residential Shades, […]
This topic is blowing up in the news. Politicians claiming recipients are laying out cash for drugs and other unneeded things. Funny thing, they didn’t give a damn when 20 million hydrocodone and oxycodone tabs showed up at five pharmacies in 4 small towns having a total population of ~22000 in 2016. Gotta keep those […]
Farmer and Agriculture Economist Michael Smith “[Land profits] are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without the care and attention of his own” -Adam Smith In other words, land appreciates not by the owners doing, but his neighbors. Sure, there are certain things that can be done to improve land, […]