MarketWatch 666’s RJS: 5th record in a row; job openings have risen 62% so far this year . . . Here is the Fred graph. Despite record highs, hiring is down and layoffs are up . . . Something is clearly broken. July Job Openings at Record High after June Record Revised Higher; Hiring Down, Job Quitting  and  Layoffs  […]

The unemployment rate is not *uniquely* overestimating the “true” employment situation Bill McBride a/k/a Calculated Risk put up an entry over the weekend positing that the employment situation is worse than the unemployment rate indicates. He bases this on the expectation that the overall labor force was expected to grow by 100,000 a month in 2020 […]

by Joseph Joyce The Global Impact of the Fed’s Pivot on Asset Purchases Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell announced last month that the Fed would slow its purchases of bonds, most likely by the end of this year. The timing of the cutback will depend on several factors related to the economy, and last week’s disappointing employment […]

I found this part of RJS’s report to be particularly interesting about the potential environmental risks in Louisiana resulting from a buildup of waste within the state. This has been accumulated over the years. There does not appear to be an effort to eliminate the waste and chemicals. ____________ Focus on Fracking: natural gas price […]

Focus on Fracking: natural gas price at a 33 month high; US crude supplies at a 23 month low; Ida shuts down Gulf Blogger RJS, MarketWatch 666 Oil Prices Oil prices ended slightly higher this week as oil traders apparently judged that Hurricane Ida’s damage to oil production was greater than the storm’s damage to […]

Spending and Producing When a framing becomes ubiquitous you forget it’s a framing.  This is what popped into my head when I read a headline this morning about the infrastructure bills pending in Congress: Democrats Hit the Road to Sell Big Spending Bills as Republicans Attack. Yes, they are proposals to spend money; that’s one way to look […]

Trade Deficit Fell 4.3% in July After 2nd Quarter Deficits Were Revised Lower, MarketWatch 666 blogger RJS Our trade deficit fell 4.3% in July as the value of our exports increased while the value of our imports decreased slightly….the Commerce Dept report on our international trade in goods and services for July indicated that our seasonally adjusted […]

 by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for August 30 – September 3 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Even the indicators which should be most sensitive to rhe raging of the Delta variant show no significant deterioration. A few indicators actually improved. As usual, clicking over and reading should reward […]

Labeling for Increased Profits, Farmer and Economist, Michael Smith It is a well-known marketing ploy to label, relabel, and even mislabel a product again and again to increase sales. We think of the almighty Coke and the multiple iterations that they have had just on their cans. We’ve also seen consumer products like paper towels […]

Construction Spending Rose 0.8% in July after 2nd Quarter Spending was Revised Higher, RJS, MarketWatch 666 The Census Bureau report on construction spending for July (pdf) estimated that the month’s seasonally adjusted construction spending would work out to $1,568.8 billion annually if extrapolated over an entire year, which was 0.3 percent (±1.2 percent)* above the revised annualized […]