January CPI: a new paradigm, with the reappearance of some old suspects – by New Deal democrat Needless to say, January’s increase of 0.5% in consumer prices was not welcome. And there was a changing of the guard somewhat, as several of the old suspects (food and energy) made new appearances. Some of the spike […]
GDP Grows 2.3 Percent, Led by a Big Jump in Durable Good Sales, CEPR The economy grew at a 2.3 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, somewhat less than had generally been expected. However the reason for the miss was a sharp slowing in inventory growth, which subtracted 0.93 percentage points from GDP for […]
– by New Deal democrat While we are waiting for new economic data tomorrow, let me pick up on an issue I closed with yesterday: while manufacturing has turned down, goods production in the US economy is being held up by construction, and in particular residential construction. Given the severe hike in mortgage rates as well […]
Ten Days later and I am just catching up on this. Typing on a new computer now, I was hoping to transfer all of my old files on to this one. Hard drive on the old one is limping along. I still do not have an update. Anyway, some Claudia Sahm to peak your interest. […]
– by New Deal democrat There’s no new significant news until Wednesday, so let’s catch up graphically with a few important items from Friday’s employment report for January. As I wrote then, probably the most important developments weren’t in the monthly numbers, but rather the annual revisions to both the Establishment and Household Surveys. For […]
Old stuff . . . an economy in good shape. Yep, this is a copy and paste. Yep, I stole it (January 15th) from Krugman’s array of articles that are more open to us now than before. Yep, I agree with Krugman on his assessment of the economy. Yep. there is inflation. What do you […]
If there is anything which can be said about 2024, Biden left it in better shape than what it was when he became the president. Unlike 2008 and with the help of Congress, Biden was able to mitigate much of the impact of the pandemic on the economy, all citizens, and business endeavors. Without which, […]
As John Kenneth Galbraith famously observed: “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” I suspect that the Must techbros who concocted the recent announcement of immediate cuts to NIH grants imagined that they were just smacking around […]
Predictions for economic growth, stock market, inflation, interest rates most optimistic in past seven years. Then too, Biden left a better economy than what he inherited from Trump. It was on the verge of a pandemic. Trump still denies today it was serious enough to keep people home. In 2020, Republicans’ top concern was the […]
The Trump administration just slashed NIH grants. I think this terrible policy shift is entirely constitutional and legal. I think it is also a severe (entirely deliberate) blow to US Universities and a possibly fatal blow to biomedical research institutions. The new policy limits funds for overhead to 15% of the amount directly granted to […]