December housing permits and starts mixed, support slowdown scenario This morning we finally got December housing permits and starts. Remember that starts are more volatile than permits, and single family permits are the least volatile of all. Here’s what the overall data looks like: While starts and completions laid an egg, permits actually went up […]
Paul Krugman has some tweets harshly criticizing this article by Stephanie Kelton. His claim appears to be that, as a Modern Monetary Theorists, she asserts that there are two schools of macroeconomics MMT and “the mainstream” which includes Paul Krugman. I am kicking myself for deciding to read the article to find if it is […]
“she was condemned by bipartisan leadership for suggesting pro-Israel lobbying groups … influence American politics.” Front page of WWW.washingtonpost.com, Deanna Paul does not seem to notice that the events she describe are insane. It is, in fact, true that it is not allowed to note that AIPAC is a lobby or that it influences politics. […]
Q4 GDP: mixed signals for the future (UPDATED with graphs) I didn’t post anything yesterday, so I’ll make up for it with two posts today.This morning we finally got the very delayed first look at Q4 GDP. As per my usual practice, I am less interested in what happened in the rear view mirror, which […]
Manufacturing holds on in February The theme for most reports remains that the government shutdown in December and January, plus a 30 year record cold snap for a week in January, put a real dent in the economy. That certainly was the message of December personal spending and December and January personal spending this morning. […]
December housing permits and starts mixed, support slowdown scenario This morning we finally got December housing permits and starts. Remember that starts are more volatile than permits, and single family permits are the least volatile of all. Here’s what the overall data looks like: While starts and completions laid an egg, permits actually went up […]
The Trump Tax Cut and Big Pharma CEOs of 7 pharmaceutical multinationals addressed the Senate Finance Committee: Pharma execs offer Senate ideas to lower drug costs – except actually cutting prices. Executives from seven pharmaceutical companies — AbbVie, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer and Sanofi — are testifying before the Senate Finance Committee. […]
Iran’s Foreign Minister Is Out This looks like bad news. Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, hass resigned. Apparently he has previously tried to resign several times, but President Rouhani refused to accept it. This time Zarif did it very publicly on Instagram, ah, the uses of social media. Anyway, apparently there is a chance he […]
by Joseph Joyce Mars Descending? U.S. Security Alliances and the International Status of the Dollar A decade after the global financial crisis, the dollar continues to maintain its status as the chief international currency. Possible alternatives such as the euro or renminbi lack the broad financial markets that the U.S. possesses, and in the case […]