consumer prices

The Central Focus of China

By |2015-11-10T12:13:20-05:00November 10th, 2015|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

For most of the world’s inhabitants, so long as they reside connected to some form of modern economy inflation is an unwelcome event even in the smallest doses. Central banks have made it their very business to control it, or at least its form in consumer prices, in order that their assessment of the Great Depression might not be ever [...]

GDP Report Is Now Only About Tallying The Ongoing Cost

By |2015-10-30T12:45:48-04:00October 30th, 2015|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

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 [...]

It’s Not Really Inflation; Euphemism For The Whole ‘Dollar’ Economy

By |2015-09-28T15:44:09-04:00September 28th, 2015|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared last week that Japan is no longer suffering from deflation the day after his own government statistics showed that Japanese prices declined for the first time since QQE began. That is actually great news for the Japanese people, though Abe and Kuroda at the Bank of Japan continually pledge to end the relief. Abe’s [...]

The Proper Perspective on Jobs and Income

By |2013-05-05T22:56:29-04:00May 5th, 2013|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The headline employment growth for May 1974 totaled 165,000 jobs. That followed a weaker report from April where only 89,000 new jobs were created. Only a few months before, the headline beancount of job quantity was 304,000. For the seven months between November 1973 and May 1974, the headline averaged +135,000. That was notable because the entire period fell within [...]

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