Student Loan Debt Forgiveness for half a million students from Corinthian Colleges (cnbc.com) An approximate 560,000 Corinthian College Inc. former students will have their loan balances forgiven as announced by U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “As of today, every student deceived, defrauded, and driven into debt by Corinthian Colleges can rest assured that the […]
House prices: signs and portents of an approaching peak? House price increases were still going strong through March, as reported this morning in both the Case Shiller and FHFA house price indexes. The Case Shiller national index rose 2.1% for the month and 20.5% YoY, the biggest YoY% gain ever, while the FHFA purchase-only index […]
RJS: MarketWatch 666 Summary: 1st quarter GDP revision; April’s personal income and outlays, durable goods, and new home sales 1st Quarter GDP Revised to Show Our Economy Shrunk at a 1.5% Rate The Second Estimate of our 1st Quarter GDP from the Bureau of Economic Analysis indicated that our real output of goods and services shrunk at […]
RJS: Focus on Fracking Summary: natural gas prices hit 13½ year high after a six-fold increase in less than 2 years; US oil exports at a 26 month high even with SPR at a 34½ year low & US oil supplies at a 17 year low; total oil + products inventories at a new 13½ […]
by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for May 23 – 27 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Few changes to the headlines, but lots of churning underneath. People seem to have jumped the gun on recession, thinking one is either here or imminent. It’s not here, and it isn’t imminent. […]
Real income and – especially – spending increase in April, but households are getting much more overextended by NewDealdemocrat In April nominal personal income rose 0.4%, and spending rose 0.9%. March’s spending was revised up from 1.1% to 1.4%. In more good news, the personal consumption deflator, i.e., the relevant measure of inflation, rose only 0.2%, […]
Real money supply declines sharply; another leading indicator for recession next year Real M1 declined -0.8% in April, and real M2 declined by -0.7%, following March declines of -1.0% for each: These have been the sharpest monthly declines since 2005: Real money supply is a long leading indicator, as shown in the below graph of […]
Initial and continuing jobless claims continue moderating trend Initial jobless claims declined 8,000 to 210,000 last week, continuing above the recent 50+ year low of 166,000 set in March. Meanwhile, the 4-week average rose by another 7,250 to 206,750, compared with the all-time low of 170,500 set seven weeks ago. Continuing claims also rose from […]
RJS, Focus on Fracking Summary: Natural gas rigs at a 32 month high; DUCs at a record low; 4.5 month Drilled but Uncompleted Wells (DUC) backlog is lowest in 7 years; completions remain 17% below prepandemic average… This Week’s Rig Count The number of drilling rigs running in the US increased for the 74th time over the […]
by Joseph Joyce The Rising Dollar The foreign currency value of the dollar has been rising. The nominal broad dollar index of the Federal Reserve shows the dollar has increased by about 9% since its low point a year ago while other indexes register larger gains. What does this mean for the U.S. and other economies? The appreciation […]