– by New Deal democrat The snooze-a-thon in jobless claims continues, as both initial and continuing claims are well-behaved within the narrow range where they have been generally for the past six months. Initial claims were unchanged least week at 208,000, while the four week moving average declilned -3,500 to 210,00. With the usual one […]
I first caught up with this article on MedPage Today, “Doc Blows Whistle on Cigna.” I also read the ProPublic report. Both are reporting on denial of claims before and after treatment and the productivity of claims reviewers. Additionally, the report discusses the use of labor (nurses, etc.) outside of the US to evaluate claims […]
by Steve Roth Wealth Economics This picture from the Center for American Progress, and variations, have been making the rounds on the interwebs lately, eg here, here, and here. The headline is that younger households got 49% richer during/since Covid, in inflation-adjusted “real” terms. But some drill-down is in order here. What actually happened? Start with background. Here are the nominal […]
– by New Deal democrat After almost half a year of general stabilization, or very slow deceleration, the JOLTS report for March featured multi-year lows in almost all of its components. Job openings (blue in the graph below), a soft statistic that is polluted by imaginary, permanent, and trolling listings, declined -325,000 to a three year […]
by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog A preliminary programming note: In addition to the manufacturing and construction reports, today we also get the JOLTS report for March, and updated motor vehicle sales reports. Yesterday we also got the Employment Cost Index for Q1. I will comment on the JOLTS report later today. I’ll comment on […]
– by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog Our final housing statistics of the month are the FHFA and Case Shiller repeat sales indexes. As usual, keep in mind that mortgage rates lead home sales, which in turn lead prices. Which, in turn, lead the official CPI measure of shelter by a year or more. […]
By Les Leopold Chelsea Green Publishing Interesting book I just started to touch upon. Book review by Paul Prescod. Last section touches upon why layoffs may happen . . . Stock Buybacks and Deregulation. Across the political spectrum, it seems as if the right to decent employment has disappeared from the agenda. Wars, natural disasters, […]
– by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog About 10 years ago, I went looking for what I called “mid cycle indicators.” In other words, I wanted to go beyond leading or lagging indicators to find at least a few that tend to peak somewhere near the middle of an expansion. That synapse was jangled […]
Oddly I am back here posting. Even more oddly I am posting on the topic I am paid to address. I start by noting two things. About one year ago, many macroeconomic forecasters predicted that a recession would have started by now in the USA. I forget who placed the probability at 100%. In spite […]
– by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. Not much churn in the short leading or coincident timeframes this week. But one of the long leading indicators joined the “less bad” parade. This is what I would expect to see coming out of a recession, before growth […]