Reichtum ist verfügbare Zeit und nichts weiter How it started (Charles Wentworth Dilke, 1821): THE PROGRESS OF THIS INCREASING CAPITAL WOULD, in established societies, BE MARKED BY THE DECREASING INTEREST OF MONEY, or, which is the same thing, the decreasing quantity of the labour of others that would be given for its use; but so long as […]
by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for December 21 – 25 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. While there have been some signs of softening in a few of the high profile metrics, overall the economy continues to remain surprisingly resilient. As usual, clicking over and reading should bring you […]
Jobless claims continue to show a sideways to an upward trend New jobless claims declined this week, but are still significantly above their recent pandemic lows, while continuing claims, seasonally adjusted, made a new pandemic low. The downward trend in claims has clearly ended for now, although whether the current trend is sideways or upward […]
As a bit of a comparison, the 2018 Distribution of Federal Payroll and Income Taxes shows 761,000 household taxpayers making up 4 tenths of 1% of all taxpayers having the highest income in the US. I am not sure if we can get it as finite as what India shows in wealth. With a population […]
Decline in personal income and spending adds to evidence of reversal of economic rebound This morning’s release of personal income and spending for November adds to the evidence that the economic recovery from the onset of the pandemic has stalled, and potentially reversed. Real personal income declined -1.3% in November, the first decline since April. […]
Bubble Bubble Toil And Trouble? Or maybe not. So recently there has been a lot of buzz that we may be seeing a variety of speculative bubbles in the US and indeed world economy. Many asset markets have risen in the last few months, with several of them either reaching new highs or getting close […]
The 2004-2020 political red/blue shift: the intersection of geography, the economy, and ethnic migration It’s a very slow, holiday-shortened economic week. We’ll get new home sales, plus personal income and spending Wednesday, and jobless claims as usual Thursday. In the meantime, here is something I found revealing. It’s a map, created by Nathan Jordan, a college […]
Housing permits and starts for November: yet more evidence of an economy primed for takeoff in 2021 If there was bad news yesterday in the further increase of initial jobless claims, there was also good news in the 10+ year highs in new housing permits. Here’s the graph of permits (blue), single-family permits (red, right […]
by Joseph Joyce Portfolio Capital Flows to Emerging Markets amid the Pandemic Among the most notable economic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic has been the turnaround in capital flows to emerging markets. A sudden reversal in portfolio flows of over $100 billion to these countries in March has been offset by a surge of capital […]
November retail sales poor m/m, but trend still good Retail sales for November clocked in at -1.1% without adjusting for inflation. After inflation, the number was -1.3% m/m.While the seasonally adjusted headline was certainly bad, this year tracking the unadjusted numbers is also important due to the havoc COVID is playing with consumption and employment. […]