Hurricane Ida swept up the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into the Louisiana coastline on August 29. The storm would continue to wreak havoc even as it weakened the further inland it traversed. By September 1 and 2, the system was still causing damage and disruption into the Northeast of the United States.While absolutely tragic for those who suffered its [...]
A couple of Economists have caused some noise by reviewing consumer confidence estimates in the United States, associating big declines in them with imminent recession, and then pointing out such substantial drops in both of the major consumer sentiment surveys just recently. If valid, their correlations would seem to suggest a US contraction.We’re meant to take these seriously for one [...]
OK, so we went through the ways and reasons consumer price increases are not inflation, cannot be inflation, are nowhere near actual inflation, and what all that really means. The rate they’ve gone up hasn’t been due to an overactive Federal Reserve, so it has to be something else. This is why, though the bulge has been painful, it’s already [...]
More inflation numbers around the world, more of the same. Producer prices, this time. Beginning in the US, the annual rates remain high and reached a little higher in September 2021. Commodities have been the highest of all, up 20.47% year-over-year for another greatest increase since the mid-seventies. The PPI for final demand goods was up 11.68%, that the most [...]
It is costing more to live and be, so naturally people are looking for who it is they need to blame. Maybe figure out some way to stop it. You know and feel for the basics since everyone’s perceptions begin with costs of just living. This is what makes the subject of inflation so difficult, even more so in the [...]
Bonds sold off again last week with the yield on the 10-year Treasury closing over 1.6% for the first time since early June. The yield is now down just 16 basis points from the high of 1.76% set on March 30. But this rise in rates is at least a little different than the fall that preceded it. When nominal [...]
The first half of 2021 was inundated with government helicopters, more QE’s, and then CPI’s put up with guarantees the “inflation” was going to continue for a long time. Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan’s often hapless CEO, proudly declared US Treasuries beyond the touch of any 10-foot pole. With the economy on fire, he “reasoned”, who would ever want safe and [...]
Here we are again. The labor force. The numbers from the BLS are simply staggering. During September 2021, the government believes it shrank for another month, down by 183,000 when compared to August. This means that the Labor Force Participation rate declined slightly to 61.6%, practically the same level in this key metric going back to June.Last June.These millions, yes, [...]
With so little to like about Japan’s own economy, the Japanese long ago had come to count on putting their money and their efforts elsewhere. General fortune has therefore become a product of eurodollar fickleness; reflation in the global monetary system “allows” Japan a bit of additional breathing room. The economy picks up and confuses central bankers and Economists alike [...]
An integrated circuit (IC) is a set of electronic circuits put together on one small, flat semiconductor medium. We call this thing a chip, and it is essential for so much of what we do in the modern computerized, digital world. Manufacturers can’t even produce cars without them.It stands to reason, then, that any shortfall or hitch in the availability [...]
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