Press Release: January 2, 2025 — The U.S. Census Bureau announced the following value put in place construction statistics for November 2024: Total Construction Construction spending during November 2024 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2,152.6 billion, virtually unchanged from (±1.0 percent)* the revised October estimate of $2,152.3 billion. The November figure […]
One take on the BEA report that I read was as follows: “The US economy has had the strongest recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic of any major developed economy. Annual inflation is approaching the Federal Reserve’s target without a recession, non-managerial real wages have exceeded pre-pandemic trends, consumer spending is continuing to exceed expectations, investment […]
I have heard or read a constant parade of how bad the economy was during Biden’s term in office. Yep, we did have inflation. It would have been great if we did not experience such. It was not in the cards this go around. Many other countries experienced similar. Politicians love to play the inflation […]
– by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. Both the long leading and short leading indicators have weakened in the past two weeks. The former is due to the short end of the Treasury yield curve re-inverted. The latter is due in part to continued weakness in new jobless claims, […]
With this commentary, we are discussing October/November 2024.The widespread belief was Biden’s Economy and it its progress over the last two years was weak. That is just false and yet the news media and Republicans made such claims and many people followed suit in belief. Yes we did have inflation, we did have supply chain […]
According to recent reports, as of January 2025, US crude oil inventory is considered to be in a “good shape” with levels slightly below the five-year average. This indicates a comfortable supply situation going into the new year 2025. Recent inventory drops have been less than expected. Analysts are still cautious about potential future market […]
– by New Deal democrat Unusually this month, the ISM manufacturing index was delayed one day after the first business day of the month. In other words, it was released this morning instead of yesterday. In any event, a refresher that because manufacturing is of diminishing importance to the economy, and was in deep contraction both […]
– by New Deal democrat Last month I started by report on construction spending by writing “ Construction spending for October also came in generally positive. On a nominal basis, total construction spending rose 0.4% to a new record, and residential spending rose 1.5%.” Well, you can forget that, because this month was one of those […]
– by New Deal democrat Welcome to 2025! The data this year starts out with jobless claims for the last week of 2024, which of course is heavily influenced by seasonality. The news was mainly good this week, with claims declining -9,000 to 211,000, the lowest number in over half a year. The four week […]
Greed Is Immoral. Health Care Greed Is Abominable. – by Jim Hightower Creators.com America has endured a long panorama of corporate greed — from the East India Trading Company to the Robber Barons, Gordon Gecko Wall Streeters to Elon Musk. But down at the bottom of raw greediness today, you’ll find the insatiable profiteers of […]