The Long, Cold Economic Winter Ahead
Cold winds of deflation gust across the autumn economic landscape. Global trade languishes and commodities rust away like abandoned scrap metal with a visible dusting of frost. The economic optimism...
View ArticleFull Employment——Not Really
The headline Establishment Survey number disappointed at just 151k in January. The figure does not represent the actual amount of jobs gained, of course, since employment in January is typically about...
View ArticleThe Other Problem with Debt No One is Talking About
Nearly 7 years have elapsed since the official end of the Great Recession. By now it’s painfully obvious the rising tide of economic recovery has failed to lift all boats. In fact, many boats...
View ArticlePeople Are Not As Stupid As Wall Street Economists Think——-The US Economy...
Economists will not remove themselves from seeing the economy as it “should be” rather than take it for what it is (and what that actually means). They have latched their narrative to the idea that it...
View ArticleSecular Stagnation Is Eurodollar Stagnation
Last week, the St. Louis Fed published an article based on a speech that Dr. Larry Summers gave to the Homer Jones Memorial Lecture series back in April. The article included the full text of Summers’...
View ArticleQ1 GDP Revisions Don’t Change The Great Dislocation
The final revision to Q1 GDP changed very little, at least in its natural format given that there are benchmark revisions coming in less than a month that could significantly alter all of this. Even...
View ArticleThe Income Deficiency of The Fed’s Purported ‘Full’ Employment
In some contrast to spending or even “demand”, the economic problem is and has always been the lack of income growth. The difference in economy between income and spending is debt. As noted earlier, it...
View ArticleThe Cost Of Non-Recovery——–$3.9 Trillion In Missing Wholesale Sales
We have to acknowledge that economic statistics are imperfect even under the best conditions. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to measure comparative circumstances where conditions are less than...
View ArticleDamned Lies and Statistics——–The High PE/Low Inflation Fallacy
Everyone knows about lies, damned lies, and statistics. The quote has been attached to Mark Twain who apparently attributed to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. It remains among popular clichés...
View ArticleForget The Fed Model’s High PE/Low Interest Rate Theory——History And Logic...
A few days ago I examined the relationship between the stock market PE and CPI inflation. The reason was the sudden renewed emphasis on low inflation in the context of trying to justify increasingly...
View ArticleEmerging From The Fog
The superficial transcendence of stocks notwithstanding, there continues a deeper and more devious trend in financial markets. As noted earlier today, while stock rationalizations were stoked by the...
View ArticleGDP Report Is Now Only About Tallying The Ongoing Cost
What should be written about GDP has nothing to do with whether 1.5% is meaningfully different than 3.9%. Everything gets focused upon the quarterly variations and, often intentionally, loses all that...
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