There were a few surprises included in the BLS JOLTS data just released today for the month of November (note: the government has changed its release schedule so that JOLTS, already one month further in arrears than the payroll report, CES & CPS, will now come out earlier so that its numbers are publicly available for the same monthly payrolls [...]
If the payroll numbers are old news because they aren’t supposed to matter anymore, what with TGA drawdowns and vaccines, then JOLTS figures one month further behind them must count for even less. Gradation does factor here, though, and that’s why it’s important to keep the current and slightly-in-arrears data in mind.What I mean is that the stimulus-frenzy narrative does [...]
Survivor’s euphoria, but then what? Reopening momentum, though would that be enough on its own? More of a concern, the uptrend was heavily infused by government intervention. How much was organic, how much wastefully artificial (in the sense of “stimulus”; as economic aid, it was necessary)? So many questions, so much to try and sort out as we enter the [...]
OK, so not all of Germany’s bellwether business sector is gaga over Christine Lagarde. The particular subset of respondents who answer the survey from that country’s ZEW, if you recall, are absolutely nuts (about “stimulus.”) Other examinations have found rather less enthusiasm; still some degree of rising optimism, but nowhere near the exuberance displayed to the ZEW.The IFO’s sentiment surveys [...]
Entering 2020, before overreactions to COVID and the shutdown they brought, private income derived from all sources had slowed to the lowest rate since 2010 (not counting 2013, that year skewed by tax changes which were implemented finishing up 2012). According to the latest annual revisions for it, last year, 2019, was a bit more recessionary than previously thought especially [...]
In the initial days and weeks of the COVID (overreaction) shutdown, layoffs and furloughs were mostly a function of that very thing. A non-economic disruption. As time has gone on, however, continued joblessness can only be a function of economic factors meaning a huge problem (deflation) that isn’t being solved by time. Because of this huge “surprise” in employment data, [...]
What was stupidest about the past few months was how it was these guys who everyone was depending upon to make it all go just perfectly moving forward. Worse, those geniuses being held up as competent economic stewards practically reran the 2008 playbook line by line. What that said, more than anything, was that they had come up with zero [...]
Another 2.1 million Americans have filed this week with their state governments in order to determine their eligibility for unemployment insurance. That brings the 10-week disaster total for these initial jobless claims to an enormous 40.8 million. How did it get to be so many, and why, as states are opening back up, is it continuing in the millions all [...]
Liquidity and more so liquidity preferences are vastly misunderstood for a whole host of reasons. A lot of it has to do with the dominant strains of Economics battling each other (saltwater vs. freshwater) over which statistical model fails less frequently. In shifting to mathematics and statistics, something great has been lost. Economists don’t understand how an economy works; and [...]
The words of the day are apparently “sluggish” and “challenging.” Overnight both Target and Cisco, bellwethers in retail and tech, respectively, were both the subject of intense scrutiny. Target released earnings that “beat” while revenues and really same store comps were particularly weak. Year-over-year, sales declined 7.2% total (revenues from Q2 2015 include Target’s pharmacy business which was sold to [...]
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