Last month’s retail sales report for May was taken as the definitive sign that the slump had passed and that the conventional view of the jobs market was finally, if surprisingly belatedly, taking shape. It did not matter to economists that the only basis for that interpretation was seasonal adjustments, which had produced a huge disparity with the unadjusted set. [...]
The ISM Manufacturing PMI for June was up to 53.5 which was the best monthly showing this year. That has been taken as inarguable insistence that the US factory sector is doing what economists expect, even though 53.5 is significantly below both June 2014 and the 12-month average (which includes four months beginning February below 53) of 54.7. As usual, [...]
While the payroll report commands almost all attention, the view from factory orders is simply much more significant. Even if we accept that payroll growth is steady at something greater than 200k per month, that is still at least two steps removed from actual economic activity as is intended from that same orthodox framework. Jobs are supposed to lead to [...]
Gap announced another round of store closings, about 175 this time which is a significant chunk of its once-leading asset base. The company’s struggles aren’t new, having closed 200 stores only back in 2011. Since Gap was one of the first businesses to sign on for a higher wage base, you have to wonder how much of that was simple [...]
I honestly don’t know where to begin: U.S. retail sales surged in May as households boosted purchases of automobiles and a range of other goods even as they paid a bit more for gasoline, the latest sign economic growth is finally gathering steam. The Commerce Department said on Thursday retail sales increased 1.2 percent last month after an upwardly [...]
It makes a very interesting contrast, to start the week under cloud of suspicion only to end it with its reverse. Economic data was routinely awful earlier, though for the most part financial markets are moved more by how that might make Janet Yellen feel than anything of a fundamental basis for all those prices. Typically, the ISM surveys are [...]
The unifying element of the prospect for recession in 2015 is how it will reveal the hugely mistaken assumptions that were taken on faith alone. Entering 2008, for example, the FOMC kept some plausibility because of the housing debacle. A convenient scapegoat, the Fed proclaimed that recession was a danger on housing alone, and so its mistakes were met as [...]
Durable goods orders declined for the third consecutive month in April, meaning with January’s flat reading that new orders for this important segment of consumer “demand” has been consistently shrinking in all of 2015 so far. New orders for capital goods have been negative year-over-year in all four months. With the pace of shipments just now starting to decelerate, it [...]
Sticking with the sentiment factor for the economy, or at least in mostly unhelpful measurements for it, it is interesting that most of the manufacturing and business sentiment indices are failing to find the FOMC’s “transitory” economic nature. The most helpful so far has been the Chicago Business Barometer, but that merely ticked above 50 after finding two months at [...]
If there were an economic recovery in the US then we would certainly find it on the fiscal budgets of the various states. You cannot spend or even generate income anymore without taking incidence of a taxable transaction. So if the US economy has been doing what the FOMC says it has, then the taxman will tell us. Even here [...]
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