Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Freeing Former Students of Loan Debt, a Conversation

An Intro and some history: Alan Collinge at Student Loan Justice Organization. Alan has collected 1,065,931 signatures on his petition asking President Joe Biden to cancel student loan debt. His new goal is to reach 1.5 million signatures. If you believe in the cause you should sign his petition. Petition · President Biden: Cancel Federal […]

New home sales for October continue slow upward trend

New home sales for October continue slow upward trend New home sales, while very noisy and heavily revised, tend to lead all of the other housing indicators, even permits. The heavy revisions figure, well, heavily, into this morning’s report. New home sales (blue in the graphs below) usually slightly lead to the much less volatile […]

The consumer spending spree continued in October

The consumer spending spree continued in October, New Deal democrat Real personal income and spending held up well throughout the pandemic, due to a vigorous government response. With special benefits ended, the question has been: will they hold up? This month, the answer was a definite “yes.”In nominal terms, personal income increased 0.5% and spending […]

Lowest new jobless claims in over half a century

Lowest new jobless claims in over half a century The first two of four data releases this morning were corporate profits for Q3 and jobless claims for last week.Corporate profits, a long leading indicator, increased slightly in Q3 over Q2, by 1.9% or 4.2% depending on whether you include various inventory adjustments. Deflated by unit […]

Existing home sales and prices, increase slightly; inventory declines slightly

Existing home sales and prices, increase slightly; inventory declines slightly [Programming note: There will be at least 4 significant reports tomorrow (Nov: 23): jobless claims, personal income and spending, new home sales, and corporate profits for Q3. Then nothing for the rest of the week. I may or may not report on everything tomorrow. I […]

Retail Sales Up 1.7% in October, August and September Revised Higher

MarketWatch 666 Blogger RJS on the macroeconomic implications of retail sales, estimates the impact of retail sales on GDP. Retail Sales Rose 1.7% in October after August & September Sales Were Revised Higher Seasonally adjusted retail sales increased 1.7% in October after retail sales for August and September were revised higher…the Advance Retail Sales Report for […]

Global Oil shortage at 1,930,000 barrels per day in October

Blogger RJS, MarketWatch 666 and Focus on Fracking, Global Oil Shortage at 1,930,000 barrels per day in October as OPEC’s output falls 588,000 barrels per day short of quota OPEC’s October Oil Market Report Thursday of this week saw the release of OPEC’s November Oil Market Report, which includes OPEC & global oil data for October, and […]

EIA Oil, Gasoline, Distillate Inventories at New Lows

Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA. Blogger RJS, Market Watch and Focus on Fracking Gasoline supplies at a 48 month low, distillate supplies at a 19 month low; total inventories of oil and all its products at a 79 month low US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration for the […]

 . . And Industrial Production isn’t too shabby, either

 . . And Industrial Production isn’t too shabby, either Industrial production, the King of Coincident Indicators, was reported for October this morning in addition to real retail sales, discussed already in my last post. – and it was also quite positive. Total production increased 1.6% during the month, and manufacturing production increased 1.3%. This was […]