Fortune published an op-ed piece by Keith R. McCullough at Hedgeye (h/t to my Mom). He argues (not very well, I might add) that QE2 is the doomsday scenario for “markets”. I’d like to point out the following (mostly because this is a common mistake): what the Fed announced is NOT QE2. Furthermore, the Fed’s […]
New York Times David Leonhardt argues that real wages are rising, so those resilient workers that remain employed will benefit from the bounce-back in “effective pay”. The problem with this insight is twofold: first, the expansion phase of real hourly compensation, a broader measure of total earnings, is falling; and second, sitting atop a mountain […]
by Bruce Webb Exactly a month ago I put up a post If a Social Security Annual Report Vanishes into the Forest noting that not only was the Report months overdue but that nobody seemed to notice or care that there was no official announcement about the reasons for the delay or a new release […]
This recession caused a severe disruption in the labor market for teen employment. The chart below illustrates the unemployment rate alongside the employment-to-population ratio for those aged 16-19 years. The visual is quite striking: at the peak of the business cycle, December 2007, the difference between the employment-to-population ratio over the unemployment rate was roughly […]
op-ed by Run “The Messenger Again Wears A Skirt (Mama Tucker on Brooksley Born)” Taking a page from his former boss and mentor Larry Summers, Geithner behind closed doors has expressed opposition to Dr. Elizabeth Warren heading up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as reported by The Huffington Post. For those of you who may […]
CoRev brought up the claim that small firms account for 70% of job creation in the US economy. Several years ago the Small Business Administration and Census began an annual survey of employment by firm size. You can find the data here: http://www.census.gov/econ/susb/historical_data.html Here is a table of what the joint survey of employment by […]
Jim Hamilton used the Federal Reserve Flow of Funds data to present a question: who will buy “the additional $8 trillion in net new debt that would be issued over the next decade under the CBO’s alternative fiscal scenario.” I thought that the analysis was curious and too “partial”. If one believes the deleveraging story, […]
Reader benamery 21 comments on US energy consumption from a previous post at Angry Bear on a better picture of what drives energy consumption in China. The NYT article used air conditioning and shopping malls as one metaphor for the good life that the Chinese are striving for, but he would advise caution for those […]
A shift to more internal demand for China might not benefit the US in ways we think it will. One such area is the impact of increased demand for resources and energy. And another is where the jobs are. China Puts Up More Money to Build Solar Capacity The government-owned China Development Bank has just […]
Today Statistics Canada released impressive June employment figures from its Labour Force Survey (LFS). In case you missed it, the April gains, +109,000 new jobs, set a record. And the June gains, +93,000, were nearly as spectacular. (Note: the unemployment rate for Canada in the chart to the left is through May, not June)Canada’s labor […]