As is usual at this time of year, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and FOMC will gain inordinate attention due to the upcoming Jackson Hole assembly. Ben Bernanke in his stint made use of the PR to first introduce his ideas about coming intervention and manipulation. Janet Yellen may or may not do the same, but she will [...]
When weather was the biggest repeated story from earlier this year I suppose it was bound to have some actual impacts at some point. In some of the Upstate New York region, the polar vortices (there was more than one) have run afoul of the burgeoning wine industry. You don’t always associate the area with fine grapes, more snow and [...]
The BLS updated its figures for economic and labor productivity, including the revisions for the first quarter. As it stood prior, the calculation for productivity was among the worst of the past four decades. Given that GDP was already revised lower in the interim, that meant that productivity estimates were going be also sent further downward. Since productivity is a [...]
When the BLS’s Employment Cost Index fell to a two-year low last quarter (Q1 ’14) there were no expressions of fear over “deflation” or that the economy was growing weaker, instead mostly mentioning the intended aberration of supposedly everything. There were, in fact, very few pronouncements at all at the time. Yet, what a difference a return to trend makes. [...]
Even though this was released last week, I place a great deal of importance on earned income as an economic indicator so I wanted to mention it anyway. A healthy economy will produce healthy wage gains because work is the basic exchange that creates wealth. Actual, productive wealth is the foundation for long-term economic expansion, of the sustainable kind, so [...]
Last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that real average hourly earnings declined in April for the first time since last July. With hours worked stagnating from March to April (despite the assumed jump in the number of employees via the Establishment Survey) that meant average weekly earnings, adjusted for “inflation”, fell as well. So for all the celebration [...]
At its most basic element, the economic plan sounds plausible enough to almost be convincing. In the Japanese version, pointed more toward an export economy than internal consumption, monetary policy expects to devalue the yen, which should lead to a favorable re-configuring of goods parity. That, in turn, is supposed to increase internal production levels which then creates increased demand [...]
There is something very much broken in the media, particularly with regard to economic reporting. I have already commented more times than I care about the overemphasis on logical fallacies, but the proportionality of the disconnect only grows with share price inflation. Under the headline, Bull Market Shows No Sign of Death With Yellen Support, this Bloomberg article begins, “The [...]
I suppose there is more than one way to interpret K-Mart’s decision to air the first Christmas ad 105 days before the actual holiday, but to most sane people it was a sign of creeping pessimism. Retailers have already been behind in their sales expectations for much of the first half of the year, despite relatively uniform optimism at the [...]
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