The 2004-2020 political red/blue shift: the intersection of geography, the economy, and ethnic migration It’s a very slow, holiday-shortened economic week. We’ll get new home sales, plus personal income and spending Wednesday, and jobless claims as usual Thursday. In the meantime, here is something I found revealing. It’s a map, created by Nathan Jordan, a college […]
by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for December 15 – 19 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Even with deterioration in a few noteworthy items like new jobless claims, the overall tenor of both the forecast and the nowcast remains positive. As usual, clicking over and reading should be educational […]
Housing permits and starts for November: yet more evidence of an economy primed for takeoff in 2021 If there was bad news yesterday in the further increase of initial jobless claims, there was also good news in the 10+ year highs in new housing permits. Here’s the graph of permits (blue), single-family permits (red, right […]
by Joseph Joyce Portfolio Capital Flows to Emerging Markets amid the Pandemic Among the most notable economic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic has been the turnaround in capital flows to emerging markets. A sudden reversal in portfolio flows of over $100 billion to these countries in March has been offset by a surge of capital […]
Conservationists were disappointed on Tuesday when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would not recommend putting the monarch on the threatened species list. It’s not that the species isn’t edging to extinction—the monarch meets criteria to be considered threatened, the service admits. But there are “higher priority listing actions.” Rachael Bale, ANIMALS Executive Editor, National Geographic. […]
November retail sales poor m/m, but trend still good Retail sales for November clocked in at -1.1% without adjusting for inflation. After inflation, the number was -1.3% m/m.While the seasonally adjusted headline was certainly bad, this year tracking the unadjusted numbers is also important due to the havoc COVID is playing with consumption and employment. […]
Jobless claims negative trend reversal likely; expect a poor December jobs number This week new jobless claims rose further from their recent pandemic lows, while continuing claims, seasonally adjusted, made a new pandemic low. Nevertheless, I strongly suspect the downward trend has broken. On an unadjusted basis, new jobless claims declined by 21,335 to 935,138. […]
A comment from Kentucky State Senator Rand Paul on voter turnout. Paul who has falsely claimed the election was “stolen” from President Donald Trump (without any evidence), warned that increased voter turnout in Georgia could cost Republicans the Senate majority and urged Republican state officials to stop encouraging people to vote. Senator Paul is actually […]
Rather than the Constitution granting us our rights, it should protect our inalienable rights. One might ask how is it that the constitution grants citizens the right to own a gun, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, privacy in their own home, …, all, notably, rights the colonists might not have had under a monarchy, […]