by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for July 26 – 30 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Ironically, as the bond market smells weakness ahead, driving long term rates down, it also sets up a rebound from that weakness further out. In the meantime, Q2 corporate profits are through the […]
Manufacturing sector continues to be on fire; but real construction spending plunges August data started out mixed. The ISM manufacturing index continued to show strong expansion. Both the overall and new orders components declined slightly m/m, but at 59.5 and 64.9 remained far about the breakeven point between expansion and contractions of 50.0: The simplest […]
This is a picture of the beaver pond behind my old family home in western Massachusetts: You can’t tell from the picture, but the pond is at least a mile long and 1/4 mile wide, I think considerably bigger. The land under the pond had been farmed and then forested before being flooded by beavers. […]
The American Rescue Plan included a fully refundable child tax credit. The credit provides $3,600 per year for children under 6, and $3,000 per year for children between 6 and 17. The credit is paid out monthly, and slowly phases out for single parents who earn more than $112,500 and married couples earning more than […]
Prof. Joel Eissenberg, Saint Louis University discussing Senator Rand Paul’s outburst on the beginnings of the Covid-19 virus. “A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring; There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.” ~Alexander Pope By now, we’ve all seen the spectacle of […]
EconoSpeak: K-12 Schools Opening In July, Econospeak, Barkley Rosser, July 31, 2021 I long knew it was coming, but it has arrived. I learned of this because some have closed due to heat and or the pandemic surging, K-12 schools. This happened in Arizona. They opened in July. Really. People in those districts may think […]
Coberly: “We need more jobs with longer hours and cheaper plastic toys to distract ourselves from our empty lives.” being facetious . . . . Or Do we? EMichael: American Average Work Hours: At least 134 countries have laws setting the maximum length of the work week; the U.S. does not. In the U.S., 85.8 percent […]
by David Zetland This book by Kim Stanley Robinson (KSR) came out in late 2020. It’s a CliFi story about The Ministry FOR the Future, a (fictional) UN agency based in Switzerland with a mission to protect future generations from our current (climate-changing) selves. The book is long (577 pages; my page numbers are from the […]
Q2 2021 GDP: goodbye recession, hasta la vista recovery, hello expansion Nominal GDP before inflation increased 3.1%, while real GDP for the 2nd Quarter increased 1.6%. The real annual rate of growth was thus 6.5%. Real GDP is now 0.8% higher than its last quarter before the onset of the pandemic: The recession is over, as […]