- by New Deal democrat
My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha.
In the middle of writing the post yesterday afternoon, the news broke that T—-p had fired Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of the BLS, for the crime of publishing jobs data that he did not like. For the moment, she has been replaced by her deputy, a civil servant. But even so, going forward data from the BLS is going to have to be treated as suspect. For reliable economic data, this is a “Reichstag fire” moment.
Fortunately, as first became important about 10 years ago when a government shutdown temporarily stopped the production of most Federal data, almost all of the data contained in these “Weekly Indicator” posts comes from other sources — some private, some ultimately from the States, and some from the Fed and its regional banks. None of these are going to be immune to political pressure either, but they are going to be increasingly important as a check on the official data.
Interestingly, as of now they diverge somewhat sharply from the very downbeat monthly data we have seen from a number of reports, and in particular the personal income and spending report Thursday, and the jobs report Friday. Much of this is due to the continued optimism evident in the stock market, a derivative of which is the cashing in of stock options which is helping buoy withholding tax payments; and the lack of layoffs evident in the weekly jobless claims data. But additionally there is no evidence yet of consumers pulling back on spending.
In any event, clicking over and reading will as usual bring you up to the virtual moment as to the state of the economy, and reward me with a penny or two for collecting and collating it for you.
