Saturday, April 30, 2022

Weekly Indicators for April 25 - 29 at Seeking Alpha

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    - by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Conditions have been deteriorating for awhile. This week, for t...
Friday, April 29, 2022

Lackluster spending, a decline in real income and savings in March; when the house price spiral turns, consumers are in real trouble

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 - by New Deal democrat In March nominal personal income rose 0.5%, and spending rose 1.1%. But since  the personal consumption deflator, i....
Thursday, April 28, 2022

Q1 GDP negative; but more importantly, two of three long leading indicators have deteriorated

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 - by New Deal democrat First things first: yes, it was a negative GDP print. No, it doesn’t necessarily mean recession. I’ve been expecting...

Jobless claims: yet another 50+ year low in continuing claims

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   - by New Deal democrat [Programming note: I’ll comment on the Q1 GDP report later this morning]. Initial jobless claims declined -5,000 t...
Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Coronavirus dashboard for April 27: Estimating the BA.2.12.1 wave

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 - by New Deal democrat The CDC updated its variant proportions data yesterday. BA.2.12.1 cases grew from 19% to 29% of all US cases:  and f...
Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Prices soar, sales drop; oh by the way, sales lead prices

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 - by New Deal democrat New home sales declined -8.6% in March, which isn’t a sharp as it seems, since declines of this magnitude happen 2-3...

Lessons for the present from the Postwar Boom

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    - by New Deal democrat One of the things I harp on from time to time is that from 1932 to 1956 there was never a yield curve inversion, ...
Saturday, April 23, 2022

Weekly Indicators for April 18 - 22 at Seeking Alpha

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   - by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. While I was writing about mortgage rates during the week, the yi...
Friday, April 22, 2022

Mortgage rates continue to rise; once the backlog in construction is cleared, this will likely kill housing

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   - by New Deal democrat No important economic news today, but an important negative trend in interest rates is continuing. Mortgage rates ...
Thursday, April 21, 2022

Jobless claims: more 50+ year lows

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   - by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims declined -2,000 to 184,000, another 50+ year low. The 4 week average rose 4,500 to 177,250...
Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Coronavirus dashboard for April 20: there’s a new subvariant in town

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 - by New Deal democrat Let me start with the current overview. As of today, Nationally cases are now rising sharply, up to 41,500, an incre...
Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Housing starts show continued strength in March, while single family permits indicate softness ahead

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 - by New Deal democrat The continued strength in total housing permits and starts shown in this morning’s report for March was surprising;...
Monday, April 18, 2022

The worst interest rate upturn since 1994 is likely to produce the worst housing downturn in over a decade

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 - by New Deal democrat No economic news of note today; but tomorrow we will see housing permits and starts for March, and on Wednesday exis...
Sunday, April 17, 2022

Paul Krugman on the Great Illusion of economic rationality and war — in 2008

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    - by New Deal democrat Paul Krugman wrote an article this past week about how free trade can enable authoritarians, and how Russia’s in...
Saturday, April 16, 2022

Weekly Indicators for April 11 - 15 at Seeking Alpha

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   - by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha . There was good news and bad news this week. The good news is th...
Friday, April 15, 2022

Real aggregate payrolls and sales

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 - by New Deal democrat There seems to be some pushback against the narrative that real wages have declined, based on compositional effects ...