In 2017, the BLS estimates that just 861k Americans were added to the official labor force, the denominator, of course, for the unemployment rate. That’s out of an increase of 1.4 million in the Civilian Non-Institutional Population, the overall prospective pool of workers. Both of those rises were about half the rate experienced in 2016. While population growth slowed last [...]
Last year was an objectively bad year for American workers. The latest payroll figures from the BLS for December 2017 fill out what was an awful picture. According to its Establishment Survey, the data that’s taken as the definitive source on the US labor market, total payrolls expanded by 2.055 million in 2017. That annual increase isn’t being lamented, however, [...]
According to the Federal Reserve, US consumers in October added a large $8.3 billion (SA) to their credit card balances. That was the third largest monthly increase since 2007. For some, that’s an indication of risk-taking and therefore recovery-like behavior on the part of American consumers. Given that it’s been this way for some time, revolving consumer credit balances started [...]
December 2014 was something of a high-water mark. Early on in that month, the BLS had published payroll numbers (Establishment Survey) that to many confirmed the narrative. For the previous month, November, the US economy purportedly added a massive 321k new jobs. The media was predictably uncontrolled in its glee. Any survey of mainstream headlines for that particular report contains [...]
The Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee (TBAC) was established a long time ago in the maelstrom of World War II budgetary as well as wartime conflagration. That made sense. To fight all over the world, the government required creative help in figuring out how to sell an amount of bonds it hadn’t needed (in proportional terms) since the Civil War. A [...]
The Treasury market isn’t the only place where the idea of “globally synchronized growth” is proving a tough sell. The collapse of the yield curve suggests, in fact, it isn’t being bought one bit. Apart from bonds, US companies aren’t warming to the economic warming, either. The labor market apart from the unemployment rate remains suspiciously subdued. According to the [...]
At every discipline human beings have ever conceived, a fresh face or new look is almost always welcome whenever it reaches the inevitable sticking point or true rough patch. We have a word for such people in the 21st century, as an entire industry of consultants has sprung up to provide just such an outside perspective to organizations or endeavors [...]
FRBNY’s December 2017 Primary Dealer survey results aren’t yet published, so we will have to wait a few days for the collection of those banks’ economists to tell us what they think their own traders likely won’t do. It’s a mess in that situation, but one as old as the crisis. Nevertheless, Economists for some reason still occupy prime slots [...]
The economy ended 2017 with current growth just slightly above trend. In general the reports of the last two weeks of the year were pretty good with housing a standout performer going into the new year. We are still trying to get past the impact - positive and negative - from the hurricanes a few months ago though so it [...]
While the Western world was off for Christmas and New Year’s, the Chinese appeared to have taken advantage of what was a pretty clear buildup of “dollars” in Hong Kong. Going back to early November, HKD had resumed its downward trend indicative of (strained) funding moving again in that direction (if it was more normal funding, HKD wouldn’t move let [...]
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