The unemployment rate is not *uniquely* overestimating the “true” employment situation Bill McBride a/k/a Calculated Risk put up an entry over the weekend positing that the employment situation is worse than the unemployment rate indicates. He bases this on the expectation that the overall labor force was expected to grow by 100,000 a month in 2020 […]
by Joseph Joyce The Global Impact of the Fed’s Pivot on Asset Purchases Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell announced last month that the Fed would slow its purchases of bonds, most likely by the end of this year. The timing of the cutback will depend on several factors related to the economy, and last week’s disappointing employment […]
I found this part of RJS’s report to be particularly interesting about the potential environmental risks in Louisiana resulting from a buildup of waste within the state. This has been accumulated over the years. There does not appear to be an effort to eliminate the waste and chemicals. ____________ Focus on Fracking: natural gas price […]
Spending and Producing When a framing becomes ubiquitous you forget it’s a framing. This is what popped into my head when I read a headline this morning about the infrastructure bills pending in Congress: Democrats Hit the Road to Sell Big Spending Bills as Republicans Attack. Yes, they are proposals to spend money; that’s one way to look […]
by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for August 30 – September 3 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Even the indicators which should be most sensitive to rhe raging of the Delta variant show no significant deterioration. A few indicators actually improved. As usual, clicking over and reading should reward […]
Construction Spending Rose 0.8% in July after 2nd Quarter Spending was Revised Higher, RJS, MarketWatch 666 The Census Bureau report on construction spending for July (pdf) estimated that the month’s seasonally adjusted construction spending would work out to $1,568.8 billion annually if extrapolated over an entire year, which was 0.3 percent (±1.2 percent)* above the revised annualized […]
August jobs report: some weak points, but the underlying very good trend continues While the NBER has declared that the recession ended in April 2020, neither the King nor Queen of Coincident Indicators, industrial production, and jobs, have recovered to their pre-pandemic levels. The former is only off by -0.2%, but the latter – which […]
Producer sector remains on fire, while two most important indicators of consumer sector falter As has been the pattern for the last several months, August data started out with a strong reading on manufacturing, while July ended with weak data on housing construction. As a side note, the latest read on motor vehicle sales also […]
Jobless claims show continuing improvement, now well within normal expansion range Way back at the beginning of spring, I set a goal of initial claims being 400,000 or less by Labor Day as a marker for a good COVID recovery – which I was reminded of because the aforesaid holiday is this weekend. Well, we […]
Really modest and meant seriously (apologies to Swift). All Senators and Representatives get a full pension for their natural lives (equal to salary) They may never ever receive any money from any entity other than the Federal Government. No salary and all investments must be in Treasury securities (oh and nooo royalties – ever). No […]