There is a distinction between actual, meaningful growth and plain positive numbers. Recession everyone can agree on, as nearly every economic account (but not all) finds itself with a negative sign. Because of the binary model that the mainstream associates with all economic conditions, the absence of contraction is conflated with meaningful growth, even where the statistics are nothing like [...]
After two months of “unexpected” weakness, the ISM Manufacturing Index rebounded in November. With both September and October below 52, after August’s reading was less than 50, the increase to 53.2 is being welcomed as another sign of distance from the start of the year, if not reflation and growth itself. That belief, however, is and has been misplaced throughout [...]
Nominal personal spending grew by just over 4% in October 2016, a number that sounds impressive by virtue of what we have become used to in this economy. That was much less than the 5.2% in spending growth from the middle of 2014 just prior to the effects of the “rising dollar”, which was itself a low point for a [...]
While certain markets continue to dream of the economy that might be, we continue to be stuck with the economy that continues to be nothing like it. Last week the Census Bureau reported that exports fell slightly year-over-year in September 2016 after rising slightly in August for the first positive number in two years. On the import side, marginal US [...]
Gross Domestic Product in the United States for the third quarter of 2016 was revised higher from the preliminary estimate of 2.86% to now 3.109%, which is to say there is once more no difference. That is true even in comparison to earlier this year where GDP was less than 1.5% in each of the three preceding quarters. It should [...]
Dating all the way back to February 11 and the Chinese turn on the “dollar”, the eurodollar futures curve had been stuck in a relatively narrow range. That trading band was widened a bit in June before and after Brexit (related to CNY’s regular mid-year drop), with futures on the whole curve bid up to early July and then slightly [...]
It’s easy to set aside the nostalgia, so to speak, since this is likely the last Christmas holiday season to be talked about in the media in the positively glowing terms of the unemployment rate. Ever since the “recovery” began, each and every year the internet and TV channels are filled with stories about how strong the consumer is and [...]
After being pummeled by a concurrent stock and real estate crash, Japanese officials by late 1992 felt that enough was enough. The Nikkei 225 stock index that was nearly 40,000 toward the end of 1989 had crashed to below 15,000 by August 1992. From that point, however, Japanese stocks had started rising again. Through the summer of 1992, things looked [...]
Industrial production continued its slow, shallow contraction, unusual in any economic climate but perhaps more compelling here in describing the different direction markets are taking. Clearly, as discussed several times before, certain parts of certain markets are betting that different is going to be effective where the same old was clearly not. The actual economy, however, has yet to show [...]
There were a great many ridiculous things we witnessed last year, but among them was the unshakable desire for the media and economists to label consumers and consumer spending as “strong” regardless of any other considerations. In most cases, whatever month-over-month change would seem positive, but it was so only in that very narrow view. Misunderstanding natural variation, they all [...]
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