Janet Yellen and orthodox economists claim that the economy can only be gaining, and that word is taken, on faith, as if some updated, modern gold standard for meaning. No matter the contrary in actual evidence and observation, the “word” remains as if diktat were the only employ. It has produced some very strange dichotomies, particularly of late, where those [...]
There is no accounting for revisions because by the time anyone remembers it was too late. The same is true for monthly variations that can easily become swallowed by overarching trends unconcerned with such small time periods. All of that means we shall repeat, over and over, the same incessant dichotomy whereby everything looks bad and even recessionary but the [...]
Economists continue to claim that manufacturing just doesn’t matter and that the service economy is more than fine. Setting aside the obvious link between services and goods to begin with (since so many services are dedicated to managing, moving and especially selling goods), it just doesn’t add up; if consumers are freely spending on services then why would they so [...]
Spending and wage growth disappointed in September, particularly as incomes continue to register barely any growth. The fact that this stagnation has continued for several years allows commentary such as this: U.S. consumer spending in September recorded its smallest gain in eight months as income barely rose, suggesting some cooling in domestic demand after recent hefty increases. The Commerce [...]
In addition to indications for a gathering slowdown in export power Germany, the UK has followed a similar line of late. That would make sense since both Britain and Germany are essentially the same kind of economy separated slightly in geography and currency. They both make much of their growth from the same marginal space; financial services, exports to the [...]
What should be written about GDP has nothing to do with whether 1.5% is meaningfully different than 3.9%. Everything gets focused upon the quarterly variations and, often intentionally, loses all that is important about the economic context. That 1.5% is weak and ineffectual, but that it continues the string of irregular and unstable approximations is all that truly matters; especially [...]
Written Wednesday Oct 28 There is much less to an FOMC statement than the FOMC minutes, all far less than the actual meeting transcripts. That is why the statement is available immediately, the minutes within a month , but you will wait more than 5 years for the actual discussion. In the case of this “recovery”, that delay worked to [...]
Written Tuesday Oct 27 Anyone looking to buck the “dollar’s” direction in September has been sorely disappointed by almost every single data point so far. The latest is durable goods which was even more ugly across-the-board than August – and that includes the rather stark downward revisions for last month. Year-over-year, new orders (ex transportation) fell almost 6% after declining [...]
If central banks are now almost exclusively on the defensive, we have no shortage of anecdotes and data to explain it. For a good long while economists and commentary managed to keep the US safely “decoupled” from the “overseas” maelstrom, but the deluge locally has become far too much to ignore. This is far, far deeper than just some indistinct [...]
It has become an unshakable article of faith that every customer lost by McDonald’s is one gained by any number of the “progressive” fast food chains that have arisen in the past decade. The common competitor cited is Chipotle; so much that searching for the two restaurant names together results in thousands of versions of what are really the same [...]
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