With back-to-school shopping falling apart, the focus turns quickly to the Christmas season once more. That is fully expected, lest anyone dwell too long on the August spending figures and begin to see through the “strong” economy. August retail sales – as expected – showed the effects of slow mall traffic and comparisons with very strong August results a year [...]
With global economic perceptions finally creeping toward financial perceptions (not stocks) despite the enormous and mostly ongoing “stimulus” almost everywhere, it is useful to review once more the assumed general mechanisms. Step 1 is really the most basic and traditional element of central banking, as liquidity, broadly speaking here, is currency elasticity in its more modern format. Increasing liquidity is [...]
If on the fence trying to decide whether surging job openings or tailing hiring is the true representation of the economy (recognizing that these are not mutually exclusive propositions, just that it isn’t very likely they both coexist in anything but subjectively statistical fancy) Gallup just offered far more of the latter. Should actual job openings hold some kind of [...]
Going all the way back to before last year’s Jackson Hole conclave, it was clear that there was inordinate trouble in the economy and global markets even though the central focus then was on how quickly to “normalize” everything and anything. The economy was assumed unassailably terrific and markets only reinforced that idea. The problem then, as now, was that [...]
With base comparisons out of the way moving past the calendar months of Japan’s tax change last year, the continuing recession re-emerges. Real wages fell 2.9% year-over-year in June despite “inflation” remaining far below (thankfully for the Japanese) Bank of Japan’s intentions. Contractual earnings nominally were slightly higher but “special cash earnings” fell 6.5% after rising 25% in May. That [...]
The latest FOMC policy statement was dominated by a single, added word; “some.” As far as actual policy maneuvers I doubt it will make much of a difference, but it certainly adds more flavor to the growing evidence the US economy isn’t anywhere near close to what it should have been by now. In other words, even the mainstream economic [...]
Last week, the Economist published an article ostensibly about the politics of wages. Earned income has become a populist football, apparently, with both political parties jockeying to take the most inane and fallible positions about the economy. As with the midterm elections last fall, the fact that this is in any way still a major political issue more than suggests [...]
Japanese household spending increased 5.5% in nominal terms in May; 4.8% in real spending growth. That was the first monthly increase since November and since it was a positive number, and not as typically close to zero, it is being hailed as another great sign of QQE success. With Q1 GDP revised up to nearly 5%, economists are back to [...]
If last month was another perfect payroll month, June was at least its opposite. While the Establishment Survey advanced by more than 200k yet again, the average monthly gains has dipped significantly of late (more on that below). Outside of that, however, it was ugly everywhere. All the upward volatility in the rest of the data points from May were [...]
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 [...]
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