May jobs report: this is the kind of report you see at negative inflection points HEADLINES: +75,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate unchanged at 3.6% U6 underemployment rate declined -0.2% from 7.3% to 7.1% (new expansion low) Leading employment indicators of a slowdown or recession I am highlighting these because many leading indicators overall […]
CORE and Periphery in the Reform of Econ 101 Thanks to Greg Mankiw, I’ve seen a preview of the piece by Sam Bowles and Wendy Carlin that will be published in a forthcoming Journal of Economic Literature. It’s apparently part of a roundtable on the teaching of introductory economics, and not surprisingly Bowles and Carlin focus on the freely […]
A Bernie Sanders Narrative for Seniors What follows is some unsolicited advice for the Sanders campaign. Politico has an important piece on the downside of the extraordinary age bias in Sanders’ support. Like a teeter totter, the large advantage Sanders enjoys among younger voters is counterbalanced by his dismal showing among the older crowd. The article […]
75 Years After The Longest Day Yes, I am watching “The Longest Day” on TMC. Have not seen it for decades, but this 75th anniversary of D-Day seems to be the time to do it. This will be a rambling post all over the place. I note that according to the film, it was German […]
A Very Erroneous Chart in the Economic Report of the President Menzie Chinn has been reading the latest Economic Report of the President and finds a very erroneous and misleading chart, which is figure 1-6 from this this document (see page 45), which states: Equipment investment, in particular, exhibited a pronounced spike in the fourth quarter of 2017, […]
by New Deal democrat The slowdown cometh I submitted a long post on the above to Seeking Alpha. They haven’t put it up yet. When they do, I’ll link to it here. UPDATE: Here’s the link. Long story short: you all know that a year ago I forecast a slowdown by about mid-year this year. Everything except […]
Robert Kocher and Donald M. Berwick “While Considering Medicare For All: Policies For Making Health Care In The United States Better,” Health Affairs Dr. Donald Berwick is the former Director of Medicare and Medicaid who talked about waste in Medicare and Doctors knowing such waste exists. “It is unlikely that the United States will move […]
Tariffs and Monetary Policy: Moral Hazard and Rent Seeking President Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Mexico over immigration has pushed Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell to say that if the tariffs lead to economic growth slowing, the Fed will cut interest rates. While the bump may be about to end, this announcement was followed […]
ISM manufacturing and residential construction spending trends continue May data has started out where April left off, with continuations of trends in both manufacturing and construction. First, manufacturing: it is still expanding, but at a much lower rate than last summer’s red hot numbers. The overall ISM manufacturing index declined a bit to 52.1, but […]