The payroll report for August 2017 thoroughly disappointed. The monthly change for the headline Establishment Survey was just +156k. The BLS also revised lower the headline estimate in each of the previous two months, estimating for July a gain of only +189k. The 6-month average, which matters more given the noisiness of the statistic, is just +160k or about the [...]
Back in March 2015, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the policymaking body of the Federal Reserve, had a problem. In reality at that particular time they had a whole range of problems, but one in particular would set them on their current course. Their overarching task as they define it is to create or foster the best set of [...]
It’s easy to set aside the nostalgia, so to speak, since this is likely the last Christmas holiday season to be talked about in the media in the positively glowing terms of the unemployment rate. Ever since the “recovery” began, each and every year the internet and TV channels are filled with stories about how strong the consumer is and [...]
In addition to the worrisome durable goods report (in the respect that it just continues the same contraction part of the slowdown), consumer confidence slipped suggesting that the rebound in stocks and prices of other risky assets are not striking a direct correlation. There may be a delayed effect, with “confidence” or sentiment in April still more focused on the [...]
With the housing recovery, it is perhaps because it has been much more visible and earnest that the disparity is more easily appreciated and understood. Prices have surged in some places as much as the housing mania portion of the great bubble of the 2000’s, yet that has taken place despite levels of overall activity at only fractions of that [...]
It may be unexpected to economists, but the sudden and uniform economic downside that is either appearing or strengthening almost everywhere in the world is closely tracking the wholesale “dollar.” In many cases, that flows through China and so is given that gloss, but there can be little doubt now about either cause or effect. In Japan, machine orders (a [...]
Even before the payroll report was issued, there was already an effort underway to downplay any negative potential. Global markets have been upset and in turmoil, but the US consumer and the consumer economy are supposedly undeterred by all that. So any weakness in September, as August, is being suggested as “residual seasonality.” This view was amplified by a Bloomberg [...]
With global economic perceptions finally creeping toward financial perceptions (not stocks) despite the enormous and mostly ongoing “stimulus” almost everywhere, it is useful to review once more the assumed general mechanisms. Step 1 is really the most basic and traditional element of central banking, as liquidity, broadly speaking here, is currency elasticity in its more modern format. Increasing liquidity is [...]
The latest FOMC policy statement was dominated by a single, added word; “some.” As far as actual policy maneuvers I doubt it will make much of a difference, but it certainly adds more flavor to the growing evidence the US economy isn’t anywhere near close to what it should have been by now. In other words, even the mainstream economic [...]
Last week, the Economist published an article ostensibly about the politics of wages. Earned income has become a populist football, apparently, with both political parties jockeying to take the most inane and fallible positions about the economy. As with the midterm elections last fall, the fact that this is in any way still a major political issue more than suggests [...]
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