Real wages and unemployment update: April 2018 Now that we have the inflation numbers for April, let’s update the wage situation for ordinary Americans. Real wages YoY are only up +0.2%: More significantly, they are still down -0.3% from their most recent high 9 months ago:
Two real economic consequences of the Trump presidency Next week we will be 1/3 of the way through Trump’s Presidential term. Last year I used to point out that it was really still Obama’s economy, as the GOP had failed to pass, nor Trump commence, any economic policy of consequence. That is no longer the […]
Economics: The View from 35,000 Feet Air travel offers an opportunity to catch up on one’s reading. In my case, this means Marion Fourcade’s “Economics: A View from Below”, which had been sitting in my pile for at least two long weeks. For those wondering about her title, she has been toying for several years with […]
Blowing Up The Iran Nuclear Deal This is probably Donald Trump’s biggest mistakes, his refusal to certify Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran and his fullout abrogation of it by announcing the reimposition of full economic sanctions against Iran, although we had not fully undone those sanctions anyway. An immediate victim in […]
In The USA, there is a striking negative correlation between the relative price of housing and GDP growth over the following 5 years Given this simple correlation, it is possible to forecast the great recession using just that variable and a trend. In fact, the forecast recession is even more severe than the actual recession. […]
March JOLTS report: powerful further evidence of a taboo against rasing wages The March JOLTS report this morning is powerful further evidence that raising wages (or training new workers) has become a taboo. Just about everyone thinks that, faced with a worker shortage, “rational” employers will offer higher wages to fill the empty skilled positions. […]
The simple jobs and interest rates model generates a yellow flag Several months ago, I started toying with a simple model of interest rates and job growth.* Based on the historical evidence, I suggested that: 1. a YoY increase in the Fed funds rate equal to the YoY% change in job growth has in the past almost […]
(Dan here…there is a lot of discussion about reasons for wages not keeping pace with productivity and the like. There are also discussions on the impact outsourcing, the role of monopolies and monopsony. and outright making it a policy to keep wages from rising.) Spencer thinks: Even though the year over year change in average […]
On Negotiations In Korea Let me say that if Donald Trump is able to finalize a serious agreement in Korea that brings an official end to the war there as well as establishing some kind of peaceful settlement in general that leads to some sort of mutually acceptable arrangement between the two Koreas that maintains […]
by Joseph Joyce A Guide to the (Financial) Universe: Part II (Part I of this Guide appears here.) 2. Crisis and Response The global crisis revealed that the pre-crisis financial universe was more fragile than realized at the time. Before the crisis, this fragility was masked by low interest rates, which were due in part to […]