Understanding the latest BLS Jobs report. What they are stating is, the labor force is large at 140 million and companies tend to overstate employment. Probably for good reason. If they all stated what was really happening in their company and industry, we probably would have been in trouble far earlier. In which case, profits […]
– by New Deal democrat The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) for Q1 of this year was released this morning. Perhaps more importantly, the numbers for last year were finalized. This forms the “preliminary benchmark” for the actual reported changes to payrolls over that period which will show up in next February’s report for […]
Briefly: Two similar versions of the same tariffs case. What we are waiting on is whether SCOTUS will hear this case as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the Court of Interntional Appeals ruling by a vote of 7-4. “Group of small businesses calls on Supreme Court to decide tariffs case,” SCOTUSblog. With […]
It’s been fashionable to beat up on blue states for their high taxes. But if taxes were the only reason people and companies decided where to locate, why are Boston, San Francisco and New York City not just deserts? I didn’t realize until we moved here that Rhode Island has been the long-time home of […]
– by New Deal democrat Let’s take a more in-depth look at the leading indicators for the economy in Friday’s abysmal employment report. As shown in the graph below, employment in goods has historically turned down first; indeed, in some recessions employment in services doesn’t turn negative YoY at all: Which is a shorthand way of […]
The last time I was in China, we went to an exhibition featuring various molding presses from various countries. It was a rather large exhibit in which other Americans and also Europeans were there to view the various brand equipment. A similar was held in Detroit, Michigan; however, it was not as big. As the […]
– by New Deal democrat My latest “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. The high frequency data continues to be buoyed by financial indicators as well as consumer spending, despite the weakness we saw in, among other things, Friday’s employment report. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual […]
Are these people crazy? Steve Roth Wealth Economics This BlueSky bleet really raised my eyebrows. Check out the whole thread. I think my gentle readers will guess that I share these sentiments. But the thing that raised my eyebrows was the explicit suggestion that we should lower national productivity. Many economists would see that as economic insanity […]
– by New Deal democrat The regional Fed August indexes, including both manufacturing and general business activity, rebounded sharply, telegraphing that a rebound was also likely in the ISM indexes. On Tuesday, the ISM manufacturing index rose slightly. This morning the ISM services index increased sharply. To wit, the headline number increased to 52.0, while the […]
Following up on Joel’s earlier commentary on Jobs. Maybe messing with tariffs is not producing the results Trump and the Repubs had in mind? A revision of numbers on Jobs report. “It is difficult to isolate the exact causes of this slowdown, but it’s safe to say that this administration’s policies (like tariffs) have not […]