– by New Deal democrat I’ve been writing about the economy, and employing forecasting models, for over 20 years. For the entire duration of the period, there have been portents of DOOOM written about by many others. I have been much more cautious, going on “Recession Watch” only twice since 2008: in 2019 and late 2022. […]

Not that this is any surprise. Employers have always been looking for way to downsize Labor input in products. Whether it is through automation, better throughput due to factory upgrades, or going overseas. A I have pointed out previously, upgrading equipment (nc to cnc) can have a big input to reducing costs. Improve factory layout […]

 – by New Deal democrat  Yesterday, in addition to the retail sales report, general business sales and inventory were reported – but unfortunately only through April. Nominally, sales (red in the graph below) increased 1.2% while inventories increased 0.5%: Here is the longer term look at total business sales and inventories: In case it isn’t […]

Intro: Former Biden CEA Chair: Jared Bernstein from his new Econ Site. Right now Jared’s site is opened to all readers with no fees for the site. You may want to take a few moments and read what he has to say on various economic topics while you can, This commentary is on inflation and […]

This should not be much of a surprise to anyone. Unless they are independently wealthy (some are), I would expect Dems to secure their portion of donations from the politically interested. However, it appears people had more interest in Republicans this time. Trump cleaned up with three times the amount Kamala Harris received. This opens […]

– by New Deal democrat  From 2023 through midyear 2025, there was a distinct pattern of unresolved post-pandemic seasonality to jobless claims, which rose in the first half of the year, and then declined in the second half. Beginning at the end of June last year, though, there was a “change of regime in jobless claims numbers,” […]

Our first home was a house made of Cedar siding in an oak forest. It had a basement and two car detached garage. Er are on a windling side road coming off of a two-lane road going into a town in Illinois. Most of the time quiet unless they changed the flight pattern. Miss that […]

 – by New Deal democrat Consumer spending is about 70% of the economy, and retail sales is our first wide measure of that spending. And since consumption leads employment, it is an important real world measure. In May, after two months of being dominated by gas prices, it was even more decisively driven by a likely […]

I have worked on this on and off in an attempt to make it more interesting. I can not. It is dull but a much needed report as it is a serious issue for thousands of people living outside of cities. Rural areas do not have the care many people need. The Feds and states […]

“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable”. ~John Kenneth Galbraith