The pace of new home sales fell again in August according to the National Association of Realtors. On a seasonally-adjusted annual basis, the rate of resales registered 5.33 million compared to 5.38 million in July and 5.29 million in August 2015. The growth rate on sales has clearly slowed, and the NAR itself finds that curious in light of supposed [...]
As it currently stands in the headline BLS figures, the Establishment Survey greatly rebounded to + 287k from a downward revised +11k in May. There is this month, just as last month, too much emphasis on the monthly payroll figure as it is more often than not noise. We can only hope the drastic extremes of the past two months [...]
Wall Street is predictably overreacting to the unpleasant payroll report. It is understandable in a way since, as noted yesterday, the Establishment Survey and the unemployment rate are all that is left to suggest the economy remains on track and any weakness would be temporary. It was a strained position to begin with, especially since the economy shifted lower almost two [...]
The BLS released its updated productivity estimates showing that Q1 2016 was negative for the second straight quarter and the fourth of the past six. Such negative and flat productivity in any real sense doesn’t make sense. This disparity seems to be, as always, in the BLS serially overstating the employment gains. The level of increase in total hours worked [...]
With the housing recovery, it is perhaps because it has been much more visible and earnest that the disparity is more easily appreciated and understood. Prices have surged in some places as much as the housing mania portion of the great bubble of the 2000’s, yet that has taken place despite levels of overall activity at only fractions of that [...]
Going only from the conventional interpretation of the optimistic 242,000 in payroll gains Friday, it is still remarkable how more than one-fifth of those purported job creations in February were due to activity in retail trade alone. The monthly variation estimate for the retail sector (not including wholesale or transportation of goods) was an especially robust +55k even though the [...]
Having established the farcical nature of wage interpretations on the shortest time scale, a wider contextual framework leads in the same direction of doubt. The point of any interest rate hike for monetary policymakers is to head off “inflation” before it gets out of hand; the economy “overheating.” Having undertaken sufficient (it is assumed) stimulus to surpass whatever hysteresis calculations, [...]
The February payroll estimate for the Establishment Survey was 242,000 with upward revisions to December and January, so we are told the labor market is surging once more. Last month when the Establishment Survey suggested “only” 151,000 (before revisions) it was taken as disappointing even though there is statistically no difference between 151k and 242k (a 90% confidence interval leaves [...]
You would think that if economists and policymakers were actually confident in the recovery idea that they would be mostly unbothered by monthly variation. Even in the most robust of periods there are no straight lines, and even the strongest job markets (the real ones that don’t need narratives) take a break now and again. Judging by reactions today to [...]
What a strange week: North Korea's new leader, Kim Jong Un, tried to emulate his ancestors by firing off a rocket but it disintegrated minutes after take off. Following that Un-success the young Mr. Kim threatened to conduct a nuclear test so that his country could end "the days of enemies threatening and blackmailing us with nuclear weapons". The days [...]
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