This whole “inflation” scenario isn’t really that difficult to piece together, effect from cause. Sure, Jay Powell’s trying to nuke it by hiking the federal funds rate, but no one really uses fed funds and the problem isn’t the unsecured cost of borrowing bank reserves (not money) that are literally overflowing. For one, the FOMC’s efforts aren’t going to get [...]
The lull in US consumer spending on goods has reached a fifth month. The annual comparisons aren’t good, yet they somewhat mask the more recent problems appearing in the figures. According to the Census Bureau, total retail sales in January rose 4.58% year-over-year (unadjusted). Not a good number, but better, seemingly, than early on in 2019 when the series was [...]
US retail sales were disappointing in December 2019, though it depends upon your perspective for what that means. Unadjusted, total retail sales were 6.01% more last month than the same month of the prior year. It was the highest year-over-year growth rate since October 2018. The reason was entirely due to base effects. You might remember Christmas 2018 for its [...]
In a way, the government shutdown couldn’t have come at a more opportune moment. As workers all throughout the sprawling bureaucracy were furloughed, markets had run into chaos. Even the seemingly invincible stock market was pummeled, a technical bear market emerged on Wall Street as people began to really consider increasingly loud economic risks. There had been noises overseas, troubling [...]
How quickly hope can sour. That is, if it is based on suspect assumptions and a misreading of the general situation. It would then be more like irrational pleading than derived from solid analysis. One year ago, thereabouts, President Trump delivered upon one campaign pledge. He pushed a tax reform bill through Congress aiming to offer benefits to both the [...]
The clock really was ticking on this so-called economic boom. A product in many economic accounts of Keynesian-type fantasy, the destructive effects of last year’s hurricanes in sharp contrast to this year’s (which haven’t yet registered a direct hit on a major metropolitan area or areas, as was the case with Harvey and Irma) meant both a temporary rebound birthed [...]
The retail sales report for the month of May 2018 was generally positive on the headline, which is to say it was one of the better months of recent years. Total sales growth was 6.35% year-over-year (unadjusted). A big part of it was due to an 18% year-over-year gain in retail sales at gasoline stations. The problem remains calibration, meaning [...]
Retail sales were added in September 2017 due to the hurricanes in Texas and Florida (and the other states less directly impacted). On a monthly, seasonally-adjusted basis, retail sales were up a sharp 1.7% from August. The vast majority of the gain, however, was in the shock jump in gasoline prices. Retail sales at gasoline stations rose nearly 6% month-over-month, [...]
Retail sales growth in February 2017 was going to be low by virtue of its comparison to February 2016 and the extra day in that month. The Census Bureau’s autoregressive models are supposed to normalize just these kinds of calendar irregularities so that we can make something close to apples to apples comparisons. The seasonally-adjusted estimate for February, however, was [...]
The term “brick and mortar” has come to be a mostly 21st century antonym for online shopping. It was first used in the banking industry as far back as the early 1970’s. Banks led the adoption of innovations, foreseeing the possible gains in communication technology and not just in the eurodollar context of “floating” currency (shadow banking). Computerization even at [...]
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