Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Existing home sales and prices decline further

Existing home sales and prices decline further, BUT . . .  – by New Deal democrat Even though existing home sales make up about 90% of the total market, they have much less economic impact than new home construction. They are best used to confirm trends. In January they continued to confirm that sales have […]

New Deal democrat’s Weekly Indicators February 13 – 17

Weekly Indicators for February 13 – 17 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. There are two trends percolating under the surface. One trend is the continued slow decaying of growth in the coincident indicators. The other is the slow move towards turning neutral or positive […]

MBA: “Mortgage Delinquencies Increase in the Fourth Quarter of 2022”

Calculated Risk: MBA: “Mortgage Delinquencies Increase in the Fourth Quarter of 2022” calculatedriskblog.com, Bill McBride by Calculated Risk on 2/16/2023 01:42:00 PM From the MBA: Mortgage Delinquencies Increase in the Fourth Quarter of 2022 The delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties increased to a seasonally adjusted rate of 3.96 percent of all loans outstanding at the end […]

Inflations Slows and Not Necessarily Because of the Fed

This is a long one and a C&P. Other than putting it up at Angry Bear, I can not take credit for this one. What I can say is . . . they are not the first ones to accuse Supply Chain for much of the inflationary issues we have had as a nation. In […]

Real average wages and aggregate payrolls for nonsupervisory workers through January

Real average wages and real aggregate payrolls for nonsupervisory workers through January  – by New Deal democrat With no new data today, to close out the week let’s update real average wages and aggregate payrolls for nonsupervisory workers. This is the best way, based on monthly data, to see how average Americans are doing financially. While […]

February 15, 2023 – Letters from an American

The President, Joe Biden, talking about the economy. In many ways, he made the right moves in protecting us from a reoccurrence of a similar 2008 event. This came after WallStreet blew up the economy by gambling, could not ante up, and government did not put enough on the table to rescue the economy. Main […]

Slight decline in housing construction: the negative actual economic impact has not yet begun

Slight decline in housing construction: the negative actual economic impact has not yet begun  – by New Deal democrat Housing permits (gold) increased slightly in January from their December lows, while the more volatile housing starts (blue) declined again. The much less volatile single family permits (red, right scale) also declined again to a new […]

Nobody is Getting Laid Off

Initial claims: nobody is getting laid off, but slight weakness in continuing claims compared with 2022  – by New Deal democrat Initial claims remained below 200,000 at 195,000, while the 4 week average increased very slightly to 189,500. Continuing claims increased to 1,696,000, the third highest number in over a year: Holiday seasonality has ended. […]

Student Loan Forgiveness Coming to SCOTUS February 28

I was catching up with what is going on in the courts. Went to my favorite reference point which involves the ABA and what Lawyer Erwin Chemerinsky thinks. Some commentary on Student Loan forgiveness. SCOTUS will decide if states are suffering from forgiveness of loans. If they collect nothing, which will be the issue, then […]

Declining population and diminished national power is bad news?

My Thoughts I am not sure what Prof. Dean means by elites. Was looking for an explanation. It may have zoomed by me if it is not obviously called out. In the beginning of his commentary, we read of declining population in China. The makeup of the population is older. Been there numerous times going […]