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

Consumer price inflation: once again, all clear except for (slowly disinflating) shelter

 – by New Deal democrat The story of consumer prices in May is the same as it has been for the past several months: virtually everything except for shelter costs, and the even more lagging sector of transportation services, were somnolent. If the Fed wanted to, it could have declared victory many months ago. To […]

MedPac Report to Congress on Medicare and Medicare Advantage

Rewrite of important points on Medicare and the over payments to commercial MA plans. This is not the entire Chapter 12 MedPac report to Congress. Although, you may think it is as this a rather long post even after I boiled it down. Why Chapter 12? Simple . . . It talks about the rip-off. […]

New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators May 19 – 23

Weekly Indicators for May 19 – 23 at Seeking Alpha (plus bonus charts)  – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. The effects of Tariff-paloooza! are like a slowly building tsunami. The tide rolled out, but now far out at sea there is a horizon to horizon white wall of foam. […]

Average and aggregate nonsupervisory real April wages continued to fuel the consumer

 – by New Deal democrat Now that we have April’s consumer inflation data, let’s update real wages for average American families. In April average hourly wages for nonsupervisory employees increased 0.3%, and aggregate payrolls for nonsupervisory employees increased 0.4%. Since CPI increased 0.2%, in real terms wages (light blue) increased 0.1% and aggregate payrolls (dark blue) […]

The Mother Who Wasn’t

Happy Mother’s Day to the Ladies who comment on Angry Bear and also to those who just come to read our commentaries. I can not think of a woman who could not be a mother to a child in distress or just needing direction or guidance. They do not have to be yours or mine […]

Economically weighted ISM averages continued slow deceleration in April despite rebound in Services

– by New Deal democrat Because manufacturing is much less important to the economy than in the decades before the Millennium, the economically weighted average of the ISM services index (75%) as well as manufacturing (25%), especially over a three month period, has been much more accurate since 2000. In April the important aspects of the […]

New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators for April 28 – May 2

 –by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. Aside from the declines in the April regional Fed reports of general business conditions, there has been no significant fallout in the high frequency data from the tariff trade wars – at least, not yet. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring […]

Jobless claims: “and so, it begins”?

 – by New Deal democrat I suspect we will look back on this morning’s report on jobless claims as the first concrete sign of impending recession. Initial claims rose 18,000 to 241,000, the highest since February 22. The four week moving average rose 5,500 to 226,000. With the usual one week lag, continuing claims rose 83,000 […]

The US bond market sends a warning; has the US crossed an economic Rubicon?

 – by New Deal democrat Martin Wolf of the Financial Times has called T—-p’s tariffs “an act of warfare against the entire world.” Perhaps it is not surprising that in the past week, the entire world has responded. Among other things,  per Eric Michael Garcia, “China has suspended exports of a wide range of critical minerals and […]