Initial Jobless Claims
The number of people filing for first time unemployment benefits fell sharply in the week ending July 5th, according to the US Department of Labor. Claims fell by 58,000, to 346,000. Economists were expecting 399,000 new claims for the week. It is the lowest reading since April and the largest one-week decline in more than .. read more
The Fed’s Real Job
Via Mises The former St Louis Fed president, William Poole, now consultant for California-based Merk Investments, made an interesting statement on the Fed policy tradition. In an interview with Germany’s n° 1 daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Poole stated: “In historical perspective inflation is a means to diminish the stress felt by debtors. The policy .. read more
More Evidence that Inflation Causes Inequality
Robert Reich has an entry at his blog about the regressive nature of rises in the price of gas: In a society like ours is now — in which most of the gains from growth are going to the top earners, and the very top 1 percent has about 20 percent of all income (and .. read more
ADP Employment Report
US employment in the private sector fell by 79,000 in June after a downwardly revised May, according to the ADP employment report released Wednesday. The number was way below estimations, as analysts were expecting a 40,000 decline in both private and public sector payrolls. The loss was the biggest since November 2002. Employment in the .. read more
Real Inflation
Frank Shostak gives the Austrian view of inflation in this article. Inflation is not the rise in the CPI. The rise in the CPI is a symptom of inflation in the Austrian view of things. Very simply, an increase in the supply of money is inflation. As Mr. Shostak puts it: In the modern world, .. read more
