This podcast came to me by way of Kip Sullivan, the expert on Traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage. We have had a running dialogue for about a year now. Most recently, Angry Bear featured Kip’s PNHP Single Payer Healthcare Financing Series detailing why healthcare is expensive in the US. I have put up numerous posts […]
Is The Downward Sloping Phillips Curve Back? Maybe. We have gotten so used to the idea that to the extent it is even meaningful it is flat at an inflation rate of 2%, nobody talks about the old textbook Phillips Curve that slopes down. But there is some evidence that out of all these pandemic […]
RJS Reports: Producer Prices Rose 0.2% in December; Record 6.9% Annual Increase in Core PPI; Record 7.9% YoY Increase for Final Demand Services The seasonally adjusted Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand rose 0.2% in December, as average prices for finished wholesale goods fell 0.4%, while margins of final services providers were 0.5% higher . . […]
Weekly Indicators for January 10 – 14 at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. In addition to Omicron, commodity prices and interest rates are having an impact across the board on the long and short term forecasts and the nowcast. (Just for spite, two weeks ago some […]
December real retail sales tank; industrial production also declines; consumer slowdown seems nearly certain – by New Deal democrat Two days ago, in connection with consumer inflation, I reiterated that: “we certainly are at a point where a sharp deceleration beginning with the consumer sector of the economy is more likely than not.” I […]
Continuing unemployment claims make new 45+ year low – by New Deal democrat New claims increased 23,000 last week to 230,000. The 4 week average of new claims increased 6,250 to 210,750: The big increase is likely affected by seasonality. It’ll be another week or two before we can tell if there is any real change […]
Last time in Denver and some observations. My youngest son and I took off to the Little Big Horn to see where Custer made a fool of himself. He died for it and took a whole bunch of others with him. We spent the night in Hardin, Montana in a cheap, yet clean hotel, in […]
Consumer inflation lessens in December; real wages increase, but a consumer slowdown remains likely Consumer prices increased 0.5% in December, a deceleration from the past several months. But this is still well above the typical monthly increase in prices pre-pandemic: On a YoY basis, at 7.1% consumer inflation is the highest since the big Reagan […]
One Man’s Toilet Water is Another Man’s Organic Farm, Michael Smith, Agricultural Economist and Farmer In my search to find sustainable sources of organic material to turn into viable soil modification vectors, I had been struggling to source material to add to the Padina sands that are in abundance in our lands. See, in late […]
December jobs report: more signs of real tightness, while new jobs added are (seasonally?) disappointing There were three big questions I had going into this jobs report: 1. whether the big decrease in new jobless claims to a half century low would translate to another big top line number in the jobs report 2. is […]