by Joseph Joyce Measures of Global Income The difference between the income generated by the domestic production of goods and services and the income received by the residents of a country is the basis of the distinction between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross National Income (GNI). The latter measure includes net foreign-sourced income, the […]
May Retail Sales Fell 1.3% After April Sales Were Revised 1.4% Higher Seasonally adjusted retail sales fell 1.3% in May after retail sales for April were revised 1.4% higher . . . the Advance Retail Sales Report for May (pdf) from the Census Bureau estimated that our seasonally adjusted retail and food services sales totaled $620.2 billion […]
May retail sales decline, but 10%+ gain in retail sales since the onset of the pandemic remains intact [Note: I’ll comment on industrial production in a separate post later] I feel like I could simply repost my retail sales piece from one month ago, because the story is the same: at first glance, May’s retail […]
The Cornwall Paradox The County of Cornwall has been in the news as the site of the G7 summit, just ended. In today’s Washington Post an article “In Cornwall, a jarring contrast of power and poverty,” by Karla Adam and Loveday Morris, a paradox of this visit is highlighted and brought out, indeed, that Cornwall […]
Record High Job Quitting; Record Low Layoff Rate, MarketWatch 666, AB Commenter and Blogger RJS The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report for April from the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated seasonally adjusted job openings jumped by by 998,000, from 8,288,000 in March to 9,286,000 job openings in April, after March’s record job openings were […]
The Zhou Enlai Paradox A bit over a half century ago when Henry Kissinger was organizing Richard Nixon’s visit to China, he was largely interacting on this matter with Zhou Enlai (Chou-Enlai in Wade-Giles transliteration). He reported that during their negotiations he asked Zhou what he thought of the French Revolution. Zhou replied that “It […]
– by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for June 7 – 11 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha Despite the spike in consumer prices in May, the long term interest rates in mortgages declined, largely taking back the increase occurring earlier this year. Reporting on the overall Economic picture, a resource-constrained […]
The spike in inflation is not a concern – yet By now you’ve probably already read a fair amount of commentary on yesterday’s consumer inflation report for May. I’m going to cut to the chase as to my take right off the bat: 1. The primary driver of this inflationary spike is supply bottlenecks rather […]
What are we talking about here? Federal Reserve is taking an initial step towards launching its own virtual currency. The move is disturbing to banks as it gives millions of low-income Americans access to the financial system and fortifies the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. The rise of private cryptocurrencies is motivating the […]
I am wondering about Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data. The reason is that I am interested in the extremely record high job vacancy rate of 6%, the moderately high unemployment rate of 5.8% and the moderately high hiring rate of 4.2% of employment in April (last month of data available). There are […]