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

Manufacturing still red hot; construction still very cool

Manufacturing still red hot; construction still very cool Our first November data is out this morning with the forward-looking ISM manufacturing report for October, as well as construction spending for October. Let’s take the ISM report first, since it is an important short leading indicator for the production sector, and in particular its new orders […]

RIP David M. Grether

RIP David M. Grether  I have only just now learned that Dave Grether died on Sept. 12 of causes unreported at age 82. He was an emeritus prof of econ at Cal Tech.  He received his PhD in 1969 from Stanford in econometrics. He soon was at Cal Tech where he spent the rest of […]

Weekly Indicators for November 29 – December 3 at Seeking Alpha

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for November 29 – December 3 at Seeking Alpha My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. After a long time of very few if any weekly changes among the indicators, there were three changes this week, and several other indicators that are close to changing as well. Or, […]

A Day of Days

Wednesday, 1 December 2021, the state of Mississippi argued before the US Supreme Court that the 1973 Roe vs Wade decision [410 U.S. 113 (1973)] giving women a constitutional right to have an abortion was in error; that it should be overturned. During Wednesday’s oral arguments, Justice Sotomayor asked Mississippi’s Solicitor Stewart whether Mississippi’s challenge […]

Disposable time as a common-pool resource I — Introduction

Disposable time as a common-pool resource I — Introduction About a decade ago, I wrote a short piece about “labour power as a common-pool resource” that got picked up by Michel Bauwens of the P2P Foundation and led to me being invited to a conference on the commons in Berlin put on by the Heinrich […]

Clear signs of *deceleration* in house price increases, but no sign of actual declines yet

Clear signs of *deceleration* in house price increases, but no sign of actual declines yet The veritable explosive increase in house prices has been one of the biggest economic stories of the past year. And because it feeds into “owner’s equivalent rent” with a lag, is likely to have a big effect on consumer inflation […]

The Return of FDI

by Joseph Joyce The Return of FDI Last year’s collapse in foreign direct investment was seen by many as the first stage of a period of retrenchment. Political pressure to “reshore” production, particularly of goods of national importance such as medical equipment, would cause multinational firms to rearrange their global supply chains to minimize foreign […]

Omicron at Slow Boring

I think every word of Matthew Yglesias’s post on Omicron, Omar Bradley, and why the hell aren’t we investing in pandemic prevention is brilliant. I think it is publicly available (I didn’t pay) and advise just clicking the link. For those who ignored the above advice, I would like to focus on two main points […]

Boring post on “Slow Boring”

“Slow Boring” is Matthew Yglesias’s substack. I don’t subscribe. It’s about the money. I can afford it, but I don’t like the fact that Matthew Yglesias makes so much money. I am extremely envious. I admit it. I think this is a very very common problem. Many people have asked Matthew Yglesias how he makes […]