One of the problems with GDP as a statistical Swiss-Army knife for economic considerations is its very methodology. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t good and sound reasons for that kind of construction and presentation, only that in making such choices some elements are left out; even important pieces. In this case, I refer to the double counting problem which [...]
Given that Black Friday weekend, including Thanksgiving itself, was uninspiring, the fact that the Commerce Department’s estimates for retail sales for all of November were again among the worst shows that Black Friday actually remains a pivotal part of the holiday setup. The trend has been to dismiss the traditional Christmas buying season kickoff as if earlier discounts might have [...]
The numbers all change with each month, but nothing really changes. And that includes how the economy changed in 2012 and clearly again in 2015. By raw count of the payroll figures, there were positive numbers in every location in the latest update as only full-time employment was close to zero growth (only +3k for November). The labor force grew [...]
The GDP statistics for Brazil as of Q3 2015 were worse than expected in every way imaginable. Real GDP fell 4.5% Y/Y, which is nearly double the worst quarter Brazil experienced during the Great Recession. Household spending fell 1.7%, the third consecutive quarter of contraction, while fixed investment declined an astounding 15%. That was the sixth straight reduction and the [...]
Despite everything that happened in July and August throughout the financial world, there remained a tendency to simply dismiss it as anomalous. That was curious in and of itself, but that the global liquidations then were not isolated but rather the latest in a continuing string of “odd” events strains such determined dimness. We have arrived at a point in [...]
The initial estimates for Black Friday spending are pretty grim; you can make that interpretation based only on the press releases themselves as neither of the words “strong” or “robust” appear in them. According to ShopperTrak, actual sales (mall sales) on Black Friday itself were up almost 15% from last year but only because there was a clear revulsion against [...]
Durable goods orders and shipments were estimated still consistent with the depressive environment that has “unexpectedly” lingered for the whole of 2015. Year-over-year, new orders for durable goods fell 4.13% while shipments contracted by 3.74%. That is the ninth straight decline in orders and the fourth in shipments (and five out of the last six months). The 6-month averages in [...]
Any reasonably or relatively objective view of the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ estimates for PCE and Personal Income (personal income and outlays) render more questions than answers; more doubts than satisfaction. For one, the series continually undergoes not just heavy revisions and not just at the benchmark continuities, but all over the place. Further, these revisions, particularly between income and [...]
The only piece of the GDP revision to note is that the BEA is still having great difficulty estimating inventory. That isn’t surprising since businesses in this area are behaving far different than any expectation, even factoring the difficulty of the “recovery” environment. That leaves instead only Janet Yellen’s continuous pleading about the surge in consumer spending that never seems [...]
The Fed has many problems with its attempt to convince the world that it has itself fulfilled its recovery mission. That self-reflected “mandate” is meant to include a masterful revisit to prior American infatuation with debt and credit. There was no more visible and visceral demonstration of those terms than the middle 2000’s, and it is the intent of monetary [...]
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