It’s hard not to fall into patterns. While some routines may be for the better, habits develop because they may be easier, comfortable. After weeks, months, or perhaps decades of neglect and self destructive behavior, a cycle can develop because of these bad...
The escalation of tension in Ukraine has reminded us of something many investors seemed to have forgotten: geopolitical risk. Sanctions and the inevitable drop in trade have proven to generate a significant negative impact on the different economies involved. We know...
According to new data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, price inflation in December rose again to a new multidecade high, rising to the highest level recorded in nearly forty years. According to the Consumer Price Index for December, year-over-year...
All across the economic dashboard, inflation indicators are blinking red. Most recently, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, calculated by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, rose 5.7% from November 2020 to November 2021. That’s the biggest year-over-year...
White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain tweeted on Wednesday: “Stronger COVID measures produce STRONGER ECONOMIC outcomes. That’s why jobs, growth, and economic activity are UP this year, significantly over last year.” Actually, jobs and economic activity have...
Fed chairman Jerome Powell is increasingly under fire for his apparently inability to take inflation seriously or admit it may be more than “transitory.” There’s been much talk of tapering the Fed’s enormous asset purchases, yet—as is typical for the Fed, actual...
In late August, Fed chairman Jerome Powell suggested that the Federal Reserve would begin tapering before the end of the year, an admission that price inflation was rising above the 2 percent target. Nonetheless, the Fed took no immediate action in the following...
Nothing a little more stimulus won't fix.
The United States retail sales and jobless claims weakness, significantly below estimates, coincides with the largest fiscal and monetary stimulus in history. Something is not right when these figures come significantly below estimates in an environment of massive...
Congress is hard at work on a stimulus bill. Doubtless their efforts will pay off. Does anyone stop to ask what it is about stimulus that stimulates? And what, exactly, does it stimulate? Start by spending a lot of money that the government does not have, borrow the...
The University of Michigan consumer confidence index fell to 82.8 in May, from 88.3 in April. More importantly, the current conditions index slumped to 90.8, from 97.2 and the expectations index declined to 77.6, from 82.7. Hard data also questions the strength of the...
Earlier this year, 17 state treasurers signed on to a letter to Congress asking them to include $350 billion to cities and states as part of the latest COVID relief package, passed by the House of Representatives this weekend. In the letter, the signees declare that...
Scott talks to Bob Murphy about the economic side of all the covid policies this past year. Most obvious are the huge spending bills, which dwarf even the stimulus measures taken after the 2008 recession. Murphy reminds us that this kind of rampant spending really...
Starting out that way. Homes of Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi Are Reported Vandalized Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, called the vandalism of his Louisville, Ky., home a “radical tantrum” taken from a “toxic playbook.” The homes of Senator Mitch...
