And like that, it’s all different. For more than a year, two years, really, we’ve heard constantly about wage pressures. The US economy buoyed by several domestic factors as well as globally synchronized growth was in danger of getting too far out of hand. The unemployment rate said it was time – three years ago in 2015. The lower the [...]
On Friday, February, 2, 2001, the BLS reported stellar headline numbers for its Employment Situation release. Preliminary estimates for the Establishment Survey suggested US payrolls had gained +268k in the month of January. To put it in perspective, that would equate to +324k in today’s population, or a bit better than the latest figure. The economic climate of the time [...]
Without crude oil on an upswing, inflation can only be on the downswing. That may seem like a tautology of sorts, but it’s not. In fact, those advocating for the optimistic economic case have been predicting consumer prices being directed by something other than oil. I know it’s a broken record, but here it is again: labor shortage, competition for [...]
The real question is why no one says anything. They can continue to make these grossly untrue, often contradictory statements without fear of having to explain themselves. Don’t even think about repercussions. Even in front of politicians ostensibly being there on behalf of the public, pedigree still matters more than results. It’s actually worse than that since all that I’m [...]
Unfortunately for Jay Powell, labor statistics are at best backward looking and often just plain misleading. Can you imagine if the wage data contained with November 2018’s payroll report had been released last December instead? Today, pretty much nobody cares anymore. We’ve flipped from inflation hysteria to inversion unease and that was always the appropriate direction. Average hourly earnings increased [...]
The 21st century central banker is a unicorn chaser. This has happened by default, a product of too little success despite ever-increasing interventions. In fact, the bigger these policy intrusions become the more likely it is the central bankers will attempt to turn something small into something big. It doesn’t matter that economies are noisy by nature. The best example [...]
On December 5, 2014, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that in the month of November 2014 nonfarm private payrolls had surged by +321k. Typically bureaucratic, the introduction to the report was unusually blunt. “Job gains were widespread.” The text didn’t come right out and say it so the media did it all for them. TD Ameritrade’s Chief Strategist [...]
Upon the precipice of the Great “Recession”, US workers were cushioned to some extent by what economists call sticky wages. Before the Great Depression, as well as during it, companies would attempt to deal with looming economic contraction by cutting pay rates before workers. Nowadays, the intent is reversed; businesses will try to keep core workers by keeping pay rates [...]
Many attribute the saying “a rising tide lifts all boats” to President John Kennedy. He may have been the man who brought it into the mainstream but as his former speechwriter Ted Sorenson long ago admitted it didn’t originate from his or the President’s imagination. Instead, according to Sorenson, it was a phrase borrowed from the New England Chamber of [...]
It was coming, it wasn’t coming. On again, off again. Voluntary evacuations, all clears, and then the rushed mandatory removals. When Hurricane Bonnie finally made landfall, it left people more angry than usual with these kinds of storms. Weather officials just didn’t know where it would end up. In eventually would smack right into Virginia’s Tidewater region, after wreaking variable [...]
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