– by New Deal democrat To start with the usual: new home sales are very volatile and heavily revised, which is why I pay more attention to single family permits. But they are the most leading of all the housing data; and averaged over three months, much of the noise goes away. In May, new […]
– by New Deal democrat Well, I was working on one nerdy long-term historical post this morning, when I decided to check the weekly update on consumer spending from Redbook. And, as you’ll see below, that was the end of that! (I may yet follow up this afternoon. We’ll see.) Last week, Redbook consumer spending was […]
– by New Deal democrat On Friday I wrote about how I have been rethinking the long leading indicators — those that are useful for forecasting the economy 12-24 months out — because while when they are positive, the economy has been as well, but when they have been negative (twice) in the past 15 years, […]
AB: Unless you were very fortunate, you probably rented an apartment, house, or some place in which to live. Even when we started out, rent took a sizeable amount of “our” income near Chicago. Jan being a paralegal and I finishing up college certainly solved the issue over time. Even then an early on, we […]
– by New Deal democrat I’ve been writing about the economy, and employing forecasting models, for over 20 years. For the entire duration of the period, there have been portents of DOOOM written about by many others. I have been much more cautious, going on “Recession Watch” only twice since 2008: in 2019 and late 2022. […]
Not that this is any surprise. Employers have always been looking for way to downsize Labor input in products. Whether it is through automation, better throughput due to factory upgrades, or going overseas. A I have pointed out previously, upgrading equipment (nc to cnc) can have a big input to reducing costs. Improve factory layout […]
– by New Deal democrat Yesterday, in addition to the retail sales report, general business sales and inventory were reported – but unfortunately only through April. Nominally, sales (red in the graph below) increased 1.2% while inventories increased 0.5%: Here is the longer term look at total business sales and inventories: In case it isn’t […]
Intro: Former Biden CEA Chair: Jared Bernstein from his new Econ Site. Right now Jared’s site is opened to all readers with no fees for the site. You may want to take a few moments and read what he has to say on various economic topics while you can, This commentary is on inflation and […]
Elite opinion so far seems to be running against the deal, but the public may be won over. If the deal holds up, gas prices will come down. In addition, the economy will strengthen and the risk of recession will go down. This is why I thought Trump might just walk away from the war […]
“Obama’s Museum, Trump’s War, & the NCAA’s Latest Sports Scandal,” Kareem Takes on the News “Trumps’War“ Summary: The U.S.-Iran deal announced this week ends roughly five-and-a-half weeks of intense military conflict plus two additional months of uneasy truce, with the primary concrete outcome being the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to global shipping. President […]