Economist Bob Dieli of NoSpinForecast.com writes in to point out that the chart posted earlier today (reproduced below) that compares real (inflation-adjusted) wages with personal consumption expenditures was dramatically skewed in late-2008 and 2009 by the brief but potent round of deflation that hit the U.S. economy.
Monthly Archives: March 2011
A Technical Detail On Calculating Real Wages
In an earlier post today, I published a chart that compares real (inflation-adjusted) personal consumption expenditures with real average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers. The goal, as explained in detail in Joseph Ellis’ book Ahead of the Curve
Jobless Claims Fall By 6k
For the third week in a row, and for only the sixth time since the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009, new weekly filings for jobless benefits are under the 400,000 mark on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department reports. Last week, initial claims slipped by 6,000 to 388,000. The four-week moving average of claims remains well under 400k as well, continuing a trend that’s been in place for over a month.
There’s Always A New Recession Lurking
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and newly minted Presidential candidate thinks that a new recession is coming. He’s right, of course. There’s always a new recession coming. There have been 33 economic contractions in the U.S. since the mid-1800s, according to NBER, and it’s a safe bet that number 34 is waiting in the wings. As Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed, recently remarked: “I devoutly hope our next downturn won’t come for quite some time, but it surely will come eventually.”
ADP: Private Nonfarm Payrolls Rise In March
U.S. private sector employment rose by a net 201,000 (seasonally adjusted) last month, according to this morning’s release of the ADP Employment Report. That’s slightly down from February’s 208,000 gain, although the message is clear: job growth rolls on, albeit at modest levels relative to what the economy needs to bring about a large and relatively quick drop in the still-elevated jobless rate.
Treasury Market’s Inflation Forecast: 2.5%
The Treasury market’s inflation forecast has recently risen to the levels that prevailed before Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008, which triggered a financial crisis and fears of a deflationary spiral. Using the yield spread between the nominal and inflation-indexed 10-year Treasuries, the market’s outlook has come full circle since the dark days of late-2008.
Bound For Boston…
Blogging will be light to nonexistent for a day or so as I head up to Boston to chat about asset allocation at tomorrow’s World Series of ETFs and Indexing.
Consumer Spending & Income Rise In February As Inflation Bubbles
Personal income and spending rose again last month, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reports, although the numbers are tainted somewhat by the fact that inflation ticked up as well.
Housing Will Recover. But When?
What passes for optimism on the housing market these days is a pale reflection of the glory days of five years ago. “Housing is dead,” writes MarketWatch’s Rex Nutting. “There is no doubt about that. Housing is as dead as a door nail.” The good news, such as it is, is that “housing is just too small to do any real damage to the economy any more,” he adds. Perhaps, but housing’s not likely to help any time soon either.
Book Bits For Saturday: 3.26.2011
● Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Are Next to Worthless, and You Can Do Better
By Dan Gardner
Review via New York Times Book Review
What does the future hold? To answer that question, human beings have looked to stars and to dreams; to cards, dice and the Delphic oracle; to animal entrails, Alan Greenspan, mathematical models, the palms of our hands. As the number and variety of these soothsaying techniques suggest, we have a deep, probably intrinsic desire to know the future. Unfortunately for us, the future is deeply, intrinsically unknowable. This is the problem Dan Gardner tackles in “Future Babble.”
