The Edmund Fitzgerald departed the Burlington Northern Railroad dock in Superior, Wisconsin on November 9, 1975, at about 2:20 in the afternoon. She was carrying a load of taconite pellets to Zug Island in the Detroit River, a rather routine run for this massive ore hauler on the Great Lakes. Only a few minutes after departing, the National Weather Service [...]
Since hitting it most recent low in mid-March, spot WTI has rebounded about 40% reaching above $61/barrel at one point. The ultimate low, which brought the physical price down under $43, was on the morning of March 18. The FOMC statement later that afternoon has been taken as a removal of any close threat to ZIRP, taking enormous pressure off the [...]
The problem with the employment report is not just about how it is calculated but more so that it is taken as the definitive measure of economic performance. The notion itself, conceptually at least, isn’t assaultive as the modern economy is entirely about the division of labor and specialization, so anything that deals in that subject matter is already in [...]
With the publication of the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow estimates we get a better sense as to how not only the GDP calculations work internally (something largely hidden until now) but how GDP figures evolve with new pieces of information and settings. Along with their webpage snaphshot, the Fed branch has opened up its Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet for the whole world [...]
Recognizing the danger of relying too much on a PMI, the official version of the Chinese PMI not only disappointed absent any detectable rebound it also contained at least a superficial indication that the US isn’t experiencing one either. Overall, the PMI stayed right at 50, for whatever that might be worth, but several key subcomponents moved deeper below that [...]
The monthly PCE and income figures that were released this week were already incorporated into the advance estimate for Q1 GDP. Given that March wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and that PCE within the GDP report was, that kind of gives you a sense for the serious deterioration in the US consumer; “unexpectedly.” If there is a [...]
Both Keynesians and monetarists are almost entirely focused on demand, aiming squarely at spending as the means to economic growth. Since 2008, and really 2007, the amount of “stimulus” recorded in that attempt to beckon “aggregate demand” is unlike anything ever seen before. Trillions and trillions of QE-drawn magic have been unleashed as well as government deficits as large as [...]
Japan continues to provide the best refutation of monetary policy as anything other than destructive. With its economy stripped bare of dynamic essentials after thirty years of the Bank of Japan’s “lead”, marginal changes are left as remnants of nothing more than monetary transmission. In the space of QQE, that has used up and destroyed what was left of Japan’s [...]
With retail sales and some other recent indicators flashing deeper warnings about the current economic climate, the concerns I raised last week and before about the “bunker mentality” have increased in relevance as well as probability. Specifically, if recession on the consumer side is rightfully characterized by households taking on a “bunker mentality” then it is appropriate to suggest what [...]
It is hard to take any one-month change as anything more than usual variation when it is so far out of alignment with everything else. Some economists are cheering the fact that retail sales rose for the first time in four months, and that it was the biggest monthly gain in a year, but both of those interpretations obscure that [...]
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