Income

The Wile E. Powell Inflation: Are We Really Just Going To Ignore The Cliff?

By |2021-11-03T13:27:15-04:00November 3rd, 2021|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Last year did not end on a sound note. The initial rebound after 2020’s recession was supposed to be a straight line, lifting upward for the other side of the infamous “V” shape. Such hopes had been dashed, though, and as the disappointing year wound toward its own end yet another big problem loomed. In December 2020, millions of Americans [...]

No Inflation Without Income; There’s No Income

By |2021-10-01T19:57:46-04:00October 1st, 2021|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Money, economy, income. Those are the three ingredients that make textbook inflation and keep it together. Money flowing naturally through the economy turns into organic income which if out of balance with the rest of the macro factors can create broad-based and sustained consumer price increases. If actually caused by the combination of those three, the result would be the [...]

Not Black Mouth To Bad Mouth The Global Causes of Transitory Inflation

By |2021-08-31T19:32:38-04:00August 31st, 2021|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Apparently, analysts were shocked when the Conference Board reported earlier today that its measure of consumer confidence, its own bread and butter, in the name, after all, dropped by a rather substantial eleven-plus points in August. And that was on top of a four-point downward revision to July. The new level of 113.8 compares to average expectations for ~124.0. Therefore, [...]

It Doesn’t Just Disappear From the “V” Side

By |2020-08-14T17:17:31-04:00August 14th, 2020|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Imagine you are locked in your home and can only go outside of it to purchase the bare necessities (this would’ve sounded ridiculous in every year before 2019). For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume that you normally spend $100 every month, half of that on the basics. Thus, for the month preceding this lockdown you’d have laid out the full hundred [...]

Monthly Macro Monitor: Doom & Gloom, Good Grief

By |2019-10-23T15:08:21-04:00October 10th, 2019|Alhambra Research, Markets|

When I first got in this business oh-so-many years ago, my mentor told me that I shouldn't waste my time worrying about the things everyone else was worrying about. As I've related in these missives before, he called those things "well-worried". His point was that once everyone was aware of something it was priced into the market and not worth [...]

Income Revisions Ironically Detect The BOND ROUT!!! But Not The LABOR SHORTAGE!!!

By |2019-07-30T13:16:18-04:00July 29th, 2019|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Chairman Powell’s hawkishness, so called, has made its way into the historical revisions for Personal Income estimates. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released today the annual benchmark revisions to NIPA, the National Income and Product Accounts, which apply to Personal Income and Personal Spending. We’ve already seen the results for GDP and underlying data for corporate profits. What the [...]

Payrolls Like GDP: Headlines Good, Underneath Really, Really Not

By |2019-05-03T12:24:30-04:00May 3rd, 2019|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

If the unemployment rate reaches zero and wages still don’t explode higher, the economy falls off, will Economists, central bankers, and the media stop relying on this one statistic for overall economic interpretation? You can be reasonably excited when the unemployment rate falls below 5%, as it did four years ago. Three point six, however, that’s something else entirely. We’ve [...]

Auto Sales The Lowest In Half A Decade, Just Coincidence FCA Will Join Ford, GM Ditching Monthly Sales Estimates

By |2019-05-02T17:37:15-04:00May 2nd, 2019|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

FCA, formerly Fiat-Chrysler, is the latest automaker to switch from a monthly sales report. Joining GM and Ford, beginning in October all three of Detroit’s big car companies will be publishing quarterly sales figures. The announcement comes at an auspicious moment. As with the other two, FCA claims the change is being done in the name of transparency. Less reporting [...]

The Global Squeeze; US, Canada, China

By |2019-04-30T12:14:20-04:00April 30th, 2019|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Ever since the first major outbreaks of Euro$ #4 last year, the balance of data has tipped further and further toward the minuses. Yesterday was a big one. US income growth in 2019 is no longer growth. Not huge declines, but minus signs where, if the prior boom narrative had been valid, large plus signs should rule unchallenged. The business [...]

Payrolls: Fragile Friday

By |2019-04-05T12:24:27-04:00April 5th, 2019|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Milton Friedman was right about a lot of things. He was wrong about quite a bit, too. The stuff where he erred is what central banks now do in his name. The activist central bank is an outgrowth of monetarism, the academic approach to rethinking the Great Depression after Friedman and Anna Schwartz published A Monetary History. Toward the end [...]

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