Updated US wealth distribution data shows how bad the Great Recession and its aftermath were, and how effective the pandemic assistance has been   The desert of new economic data this week continues today. But last week the Fed released its quarterly data on wealth distribution in the US, and it shows an important point […]

Housing and car sales, oh my! [If last week was a slow week for economic data, this week is a virtual wasteland until Thursday, so I took yesterday off.] Last month I wrote that typically it has taken at least a 20% decline in housing construction to be consistent with an oncoming recession and that […]

EconoSpeak: Will Krysten Sinema Change Parties?, Barkley Rosser, October 5, 2021 I have resisted posting something like this, but while I have yet to see anybody else suggest it, this possibility has been on my mind now for several days. We have never seen to my knowledge a senator refuse to offer their views on […]

In her 2020 book ‘Waste’, Catherine Flowers speaks to the practice in Alabama – throughout the South – of keeping the poor and ignorant poor and ignorant so that there would always be a cheap source of labor on hand. In a September 2021 House Budget Committee hearing, a member from neighboring Georgia patiently explained […]

Briefly, with more info being found at The American Prospect by David Dayen (link below). The USPS has initiated check cashing service for a minimal fee. And Louis Destroy the USPS DeJoy has bought into this service. The pilot was launched on September 13 (?) in four locations: Washington, D.C.; Falls Church, Virginia; Baltimore; and […]

Manufactuing remains white hot, while construction spending is mixed As usual, we started out the month with the forward-looking ISM manufacturing report for September, as well as construction spending for August. Let’s take the ISM report first since it is an important short-leading indicator for the production sector. And here, the news was good, as […]

New jobless claims increase: exit Delta, enter supply chain chokepoints?   This week jobless claims were higher for the third week in a row, and the 4-week average also rose slightly. Initial claims rose 11,000 to 362,000, and the 4-week average rose 4,250 to 340,000, from last week’s pandemic low: Meanwhile, continuing claims declined 18,000 […]

Real spending increases, real income declines in August (Note: I’ll report separately on construction spending and the ISM manufacturing index later.) Real personal income and spending held up well throughout the pandemic, due to a vigorous government response. This morning these were reported for the last full month of any assistance. In nominal terms, personal income […]

 by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for September 27 – October 1 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Commodity prices and transportation costs continue to soar, and there are even signs of further acceleration. If you go by the regional Fed reports, it is beginning to affect manufacturing. If you […]

House prices continue to surge. But maybe . . . Both the FHFA and Case-Shiller house price indexes for July were released this morning. Both showed a continued surge in house prices, with one difference that may be of importance. First, here are both indexes normed to 100 as of January 1991, when the FHFA […]