– by New Deal democrat Industrial production is much less central to the US economic picture than it was before the “China shock,” since so much production moved overseas, meaning US consumers buy much more imported goods than they used to. Still it is an important if diminished coincident indicator. This morning’s report for July can […]

This piece by Claudia Sahm is about two weeks old. The perspective is still worth reading. The economy is still be pulled one way or another as Tr__p plays he tariff games up and down and who makes deals and who does not. That is enough to create uncertainty in the market. “There are factors […]

– by New Deal democrat Normally I don’t pay too much attention to producer prices, but occasionally they are very important – and today is one of those days.  Here’s why. In the past, as shown in this graph going back over 50 years: when producer prices outstrip consumer prices, that means producers aren’t able to […]

Dean Baker: Don’t Buy the Scare About Social Security. “The increase in spending on Social Security from 2033 to 2034 (measured as a share of GDP) is 0.03 percentage points. That would be less than 1.0 percent of the Pentagon’s budget. This is the extent of the increased economic burden in the year the trust […]

 – by New Deal democrat Obviously this morning’s PPI number was the most important report of the day. I want to get to that later, but first let’s update the jobless claims situation. The good numbers in initial claims continued, as they declined -3,000 to 224,000. The four week moving average increased 750 to 221,750. But […]

by Paul Krugman Paul Krugman on E.J. Antoni taking over BLS if appointed by Pres, Trump. “there’s a good chance that Antoni will, in fact, take over the BLS. And the result will be the total destruction of one of the world’s greatest statistical agencies.” On Monday I wrote about Donald Trump’s disastrous press conference touting the […]

Teslas are pretty popular here in Rhode Island. While that appears virtuous, it’s important to recall that 95% of Rhode Island electricity comes from natural gas, so those Teslas are running on fossil fuel. EVs are proliferating all over the planet: “Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Car News China reports that in the first half […]

My little post on the warnings by Paul Krugman and others that the US economy might be entering a period of stagflation, was prompted by my experience as young man who finished his education, started in his career and got married in the 1970’s when “stagflation” was the buzz word and politicians kept pointing fingers […]

 – by New Deal democrat In my note yesterday about the July CPI, I noted the transition from the trend where overall inflation ex-shelter was low, and shelter was high but disinflating, to a trend where inflation ex-shelter while still low was increasing, as shelter contributed the most to disinflation. The question was, and will be […]

 – by New Deal democrat The story of this month’s CPI report is summed up in the first few graphs below: the shelter portion of the index continues its slow deceleration, while the non-shelter portion of the index appears to be in a slowly rising trend. This has resulted in headline inflation trending ever so […]