Industrial production continues to show negative growth. This was perhaps the most important release of a busy week. It was atleast the one that had the greatest effect on GDPNow (unfortunately to the downside). This month is much about the auto industry. There have been some headlines about Americans broadly shunning EV's and inventory building on parking lots. The reasoning [...]
Inconvenient timing, to say the least. Auto sales in the US last month were, well, not good. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), the government agency responsible for GDP, unit sales of light vehicles tumbled to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 12.68 million in May 2022. That’s the lowest since December, down substantially from a not-too-high 14.50 million [...]
When even Bloomberg can’t help but notice, not just notice but then write about it, that’s significant. Normally a staunch water carrier for the official Federal Reserve position, these curves getting bent so far out of what would be better shapes aren’t so easy to just dismiss and ignore any longer. Jay Powell says household and business finances are holding [...]
It hurts, so people want to know what to blame. Who should they punish for inflicting their pain? Enter human bias and the emotional processing of preconceived conclusions, “inflation” is no longer a topic which can be discussed rationally. A statistical weapon instead to be wielded attempting to settle other debates.Joe Biden did it. No, this is a Biden Boom, [...]
Christmas came early for retailers already experiencing a boom year. This, however, creates a bit of conundrum given that producers have suffered rather than flourished despite such great fortune at the top of the supply chain. In whichever location you look at, production has been at best questionable.Why?Theories abound. The mainstream is filled with those like what’s been reported as [...]
Hurricane Ida swept up the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into the Louisiana coastline on August 29. The storm would continue to wreak havoc even as it weakened the further inland it traversed. By September 1 and 2, the system was still causing damage and disruption into the Northeast of the United States.While absolutely tragic for those who suffered its [...]
The American people were first introduced to the Treasury helicopter in 2008, not 2021. The Bush Administration's “radical” approach to keeping the Great “Recession” from becoming a contraction, obviously, failed spectacularly even though the initial returns had been positive – literally positive in how Q2 ’08 GDP suddenly turned higher as if this was by skilled design. Economists, including those [...]
A tale of two retail industries. In the one, the well-known chip problem holding back what is already a monstrously robust (if artificial) sales environment. Automobile dealer lots are nearing empty and carmakers are unable (perhaps unwilling, too?) to produce near sufficient volumes to keep up let alone restock.This view of the situation, though, has clouded perspectives particularly as they [...]
Count retail sales (US) among the dead data. Like recent CPI’s and PPI’s, consumer spending on goods continues to be sky high – and yet markets (even stocks) don’t seem to care. For the month of June 2021, the Census Bureau believes total sales were up when compared to May, though not much as May’s estimate was revised lower. At [...]
Same stuff, different month. We can basically reprint both what was described yesterday about supply curves not keeping up with exaggerated demand as well as the past two months of commentary on Retail Sales plus Industrial Production each for the US. Quite on the nose, US demand for goods, anyway, is eroding if still artificially very high. Producers, on the [...]
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