The Employment Situation Summary for April 2006 reports that employment per the payroll survey rose by 138,000. The household survey shows an increase of only 47,000. I wish I had better new for this Cinco de Mayo. I also want to know what the heck CNN means by this: But the report had one reading […]
Max Sawicky had a fitting tribute to the late John Kenneth Galbraith and linked to several others. This may be a little on the late side, but I was truly insulted by the National Review’s version of an obituary for Professor Galbraith, which was to replay this September 2001 smear from William Buckley. Consider, for […]
Bill Polley links to the New York Times obituary for the former host of Wall Street Week. Like Bill, I used to watch Lou’s show faithfully. NPR ran an old interview when Lou gave three pieces of sage of advice to those of us who might try to discuss economics to the general public: Rule […]
Via Mark Thoma comes a debate between David Frum and Bruce Bartlett as to the prospects of achieving fiscal responsibility through cuts in government spending. The short answer is that we cannot. Let’s have Mr. Frum up first: In the 1990s, the newly elected Republican congressional majority enjoyed what we can now see was the […]
As a supplement to the GDP report, the Bureau of Economic Analysis provides an estimate of aggregate mortgage interest and the effective rate of interest on mortgage debt outstanding. It should come as no surprise that the effective interest rate is increasing. Click on graph for larger image. After twenty years of declining rates, the […]
Arianna Huffington should consider John Derbyshire to do her Russert Watch: Watching Meet the Press roundtable on the gas price kerfuffle. Russert, challenging Energy Secretary Sam Bodman: “Oil demand is up. Supply is down. So why are prices rising?” Er……….. OK – Rachel Sklar did a nice job echoing something CalculatedRisk observed: Bodman says that […]
Do today’s marches in Los Angeles slightly inconvenience me? Perhaps – but I support today’s boycott even if I have to work at home for one day. If you are wondering where I live Mark Kleiman gives you a clue: Note to my Westside friends: Yes, Highland Park is on the wrong side of Interstate […]
Via Dean Baker comes Eric Dash of the New York Times writing about one aspect of the compensation package for Denny’s CEO: For leading the turnaround of the Denny’s restaurant chain, Nelson J. Marchioli was all but given an extra $500,000 last year, slightly more than his reported bonus for 2005. For leading the turnaround […]
The Advance Estimate for the first quarter of 2006 is out reporting 4.8% real GDP growth on an annualized basis, which basically makes up for the weak 1.7% figure for the last quarter of 2005. Investment growth remains strong and consumption grew relative to GDP. Andrew Samwick is worried that private savings remains low. Rubinomics […]
Kevin Drum watches the stock price of Exxon decline even though they reported $8 billion in quarterly profits. CNN’s American Morning was on the story explaining the decline in the stock price by noting that analysts had expected $9.2 billion (not trillion). At one point – Andy Serwer hinted that the difference between reported earnings […]