Coronavirus dashboard for August 9: BA.5 dominant, with a slow waning; a model for endemicity – by New Deal democrat BIobot’s most recent update, through last week, shows a decline of 15% of COVID in wastewater, consistent with about 460,000 “real” new infections per day: All 4 Census regions (not shown) are participating in […]
Weekly Indicators for August 1 – 5 at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Several important metrics have reversed course in the past month. Interest rates, especially mortgage rates, have declined (in the case of mortgages, by 1 full % from their peak. As many have pointed […]
I subscribe to Prof. Heather Cox’s site. I pick the posts I believe might be interesting to AB readers. This one fits the spirit of the day. August 5, 2022, Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson On this day in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law a new tax law to help fund […]
July jobs report: in which an absolute positive blowout make me happily wrong; all pandemic job losses now recovered – by New Deal democrat As I wrote earlier this week, the short leading indicators for both jobs (real retail sales) and the unemployment rate (initial jobless claims) have each signaled that we should expect weaker […]
Jobless claims continue their relentless climb – by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims rose 6,000 to 260,000 last week. More importantly, the 4 week average, which has been rising relentlessly, rose another 6,000 as well to 254,750, an 8 month high. Continuing claims also rose 48,000 to 1,417,000, the highest since April: Initial claims […]
JOLTS report for June amplifies likelihood of substantial downturn in job growth, upturn in unemployment Before we get to the JOLTS report for June, which was released this morning, I wanted to make a point about the overall trend in employment. Because, the two best short leading indicators for employment and unemployment are both pointing […]
Quick note; “ISM metric strongly suggests that it is likely that the economy will enter recession no later than Q1 of next year, and possibly much sooner (but probably not now). more detail below July manufacturing and June construction spending: leading components of both are negative – by New Deal democrat As usual, the new […]
Weekly Indicators for July 25 – 29 at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. There have been some interesting counter-trend movements in the indicators. For example, interest rates on mortgages have declined by more than 1% since their peak one month ago. Gas prices have declined by […]
Real income continued to fall in June, while consumers dug deeper to spend – by New Deal democrat In June personal income rose 0.6% nominally, and nominal spending rose 1.1%. The personal consumption deflator, i.e., the relevant measure of inflation, clocked in at 1.0%, meaning real income fell -0.4%, while real personal spending rose 0.1%. […]
How Changes In Changes In Inventories Have Brought US The “Recession” That Is Probably Not A Recession by Barkley Rosser, Econospeak Based on just announced preliminary results, it looks like the US will have experiences negative GDP growth for the first two quarters of 2022. Based on a “rule of thumb” introduced in a New […]