Bernanke to be Reappointed, and Here's Why
Today, President Obama will announce that he will reappoint current Federal Reserve Chairman to a second four year term. My guess is that this was a very easy decision and I will highlight the reasons...
View ArticleCash for Clunkers Failed, but Ended the Recession
We now have the seasonally adjusted annual rate of auto sales (saar) for August and it shows that cash for clunkers (c4c) was likely a big failure. This failure, however, won't prevent it from ending...
View ArticleAn Unemployment Primer Before Tomorrow's Report
I thought I would provide a bit of a primer on the economic data that will be released tomorrow for non-farm payrolls and the unemployment rate in an attempt to reduce the confusion many on this blog...
View ArticleBreaking: Today's Unemployment Report and a Primer
Today's report has been released. And this was a relatively bad report, as the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.7% and more importantly, the employment-population ration moved down to 59.2. Neither...
View ArticleWhen Will We See Job Growth?
The one thing we seem to argue a lot about here is the state of the economy and whether a recovery is forthcoming. I am firmly in the camp that the technical recession is in fact over and think we...
View ArticleAn Abysmal Jobs Report
Today's employment situation report was abysmal by almost any standards. Yes, we are definitely off the worst levels of the recession and have avoided a collapse into economic chaos, but this report...
View ArticleFree Trade Isn't to Blame for Job Losses; Technology Is.
Or, Were the Luddites Just Too Early? There seems to be more and more talk about our decline in manufacturing prominence and its relation to outsourcing/off-shoring, but these arguments always gloss...
View ArticleGDP is up 3.5%, The Recession is Over
GDP grew by 3.5% in the third quarter of 2009, beating the general consensus estimate of 3% and essentially putting an end to the recession (although that won't come officially from NBER for a while,...
View ArticleUnemployment Rate cracks 10%
The unemployment rate hit 10.2% today. The report overall appears to be a bad one, bu the numbers are actually a little deceiving, as the BLS changed the seasonal adjustment factor, which made the...
View ArticleWere Jobs Actually Added Last Month?
I am cross-posting my diaryfrom Bonddad Blog here as a sort of educational piece on the Employment Situation Summary that was released yesterday from the BLS. The real interesting part of this (and it...
View ArticleDid the Economy Actually Add Jobs Last Month?
I am cross-posting my diary from Bonddad Blog here as a sort of educational piece on the Employment Situation Summary that was released yesterday from the BLS. The real interesting part of this (and...
View ArticleYou Can't Cherry Pick the Jobs Data Floyd Norris
An absolutely ignorant piece on the October jobs report was published yesterday by Floyd Norris where he essentially cherry picks his data and completely ignores seasonal adjustments.
View ArticleObama's Sudden Concern for our National Debt
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article out today discussing utilizing unused TARP funds to pay down the deficit and the potential for either spending cuts or freezes across the board. The...
View ArticleI Thought Conspiracy Theory Diaries Were Banned: The Federal Reserve is Not...
A diary currently on the rec list is an embarrassment to this site for its description of the federal reserve system and links to conspiratorial sites that are essentially describing the Fed as either...
View ArticleAlan Grayson's Right, The Federal Reserve is Ruining the Country
Alan Grayson among others have been spot on recently with calls to open up the books of the Federal Reserve and show exactly what they are doing/have done with various asset swaps and bank injections...
View ArticleSupport President Obama by Supporting Ben Bernanke
Recently there have been a spate of diaries here (some spouting conspiracy theories) calling for the Senate to not reconfirm Ben Bernanke as Fed Chair for another term. Many of those posting such...
View ArticleThe Bernanke Confirmation Hearing Thread
Ben Bernanke's confirmation hearing has begun. Blog here about what your hear.
View ArticleBreaking: We Almost had Job Creation Last Month, Unemployment Down to 10%.
The BLS released its Employment Situation report today and the results came in with an adjusted loss of 11,000 and an unadjusted gain of 80,000. The widely reported U-3 unemployment rate came in at...
View ArticleAlan Grayson has No Clue on The Federal Reserve
In a response to a comment I made in another diary discussing the Federal Reserve, the diarist responded with a video of Representative Grayson (D-FL) question Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Barnanke on...
View ArticleThe Economic Recovery Continues
The retail sales report was released today and it showed not only a strong (and much better than expected) month over month gain, but for the first time since August of 2008 the year over year sales...
View ArticleMy Economic Predictions for 2010
I decided to go out on a limb and place my economic predictions for the last year of the first decade of the 21st century for all to see and ridicule later in the year (and probably now too). I am not...
View ArticleRevisionist History and the Housing Bubble
Crossposted at Bonddad BlogFollowing Ben Bernanke's speech discussing the role that a lack of regulation played in the creation of the housing bubble versus the conventional wisdom that the Fed's low...
View ArticleA Great Conspiracy: The Plunge Protection Team
Recently, a very poorly researched MarketWatch article which includes the great quote: Biderman acknowledged that he had no direct evidence that the Fed and other agencies have intervened in the stock...
View ArticleBreaking: 85,000 Jobs Lost in December, Unemployment at 10%
The BLS just released the December Employment Situation Report, which showed a much greater than expected loss of 85,000 jobs. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 10% and the closely followed...
View ArticleIs Labor Force Shrinkage Really Bad?
Much has been made about last months .3% drop in the Labor Participation rate and the 843,000 additional people added to those "not in the labor force". The assumption is that this is bad for our...
View ArticleWhat We Do Know About the Economy
It appears that once again when the statistics don't show doom and gloom in the economy, we get to hear from the doomers about how the statistics must be wrong and corrupted. Of course, that is...
View ArticleEzra Klein is an Idiot, or Why Medical Costs and Wages Don't Mix
Having read many of the recommended diaries here regarding the Excise Tax on health care plans, I realized that the one thing it seemed was missing from any of these diaries was an actual economic...
View ArticleNot Massachusetts or Haiti, An Economy Thread
Seeing as the Rec list and recent diary list is full of nothing but Senate-MA election and Haiti recovery diaries, I thought I would recap the week in the economy and provide a pseudo open thread for...
View ArticleIs Bernanke Done?
It appears that in light of the Brown election, the Senate may no longer have the votes needed (likely 60) to reconfirm Ben Bernake as Federal Reserve Chairman. ABCNews is reporting that getting the...
View ArticleBreaking: Sanity Prevails - Bernanke Will Get 2nd Term
The Senate just voted for cloture on Ben Bernanke's confirmation for his second term as Federal Reserve Chairman. The vote was 77-23 . This vote is good news for the country as it shows that sanity...
View ArticleBreaking: BLS to Report 2 million+ Jobs Lost Last Month!
Tomorrow, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is going to publish its employment situation report for January and it will show job losses exceeding 2 million (and quite possibly over 3 million jobs...
View ArticleWhere Will the Jobs Come From?
Now that it appears as though economic armageddon is behind us and we are flirting with a recovery (at least in terms of GDP and leading indicators at this point), the next question isn't when will we...
View ArticleFree Trade Is Not A Job Killer
A recent debate elsewhere interested me enough to do some research on the effects trade has on goods producing employment in the US. Now, I want to state upfront that this is a look at the aggregate...
View ArticleHedge Funds Conspiring to Take Down the Economy?
Bloomberg had an interesting article up today regarding an "idea" meeting of some of the biggest hedge funds in the world in New York recently and it appears after an agenda was leaked, that the...
View ArticleUPDATED: February Jobs Report: Is a Double-Dip Coming?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Employment Situation Summary for February this morning, which showed a loss of 36,000 jobs in the Establishment Survey and an increase of over 300,000 jobs...
View ArticleWhat a Real Recovery Looks Like: and Why We Likely Won't Have One
I am going to examine (graphically) the recovery follow the early 80's recession(s). Specifically, I am going to look at the recovery following the very deep 7/81-11/82 recession that saw unemployment...
View ArticleA Real Economic Recovery vs Today
I am going to examine (graphically) the recovery follow the early 80's recession(s). Specifically, I am going to look at the recovery following the very deep 7/81-11/82 recession that saw unemployment...
View ArticleNBER Says Recession Not Over (or do they)?
The National Bureau of Economic Research has announced that it The committee announced Monday that it cannot yet declare an end to the recession that began in December 2007. So, does this mean that the...
View ArticleGDP Up Again; Job Growth Will Continue to Strengthen
The Bureau of Economic Analysis released Q1 2010 GDP today and it showed another increase of 3.2%. This follows on the heels of the Q4 2009 GDP increase of 5.6% and a Q3 2009 GDP increase of 2.2%....
View ArticleBLowout Jobs Report: +290,000 Jobs in April
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the April Employment Situation Report today, which showed an Establishment Survey gain of 290,000 jobs, of which 66,000 were census hires. The Household...
View ArticleA Horrible Jobs Report (only 20,000 non-census jobs)
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released today the May 2010 Employment Situation Report and it showed (even sans census) a horrible report for the month. The headline Establishment Survey jobs...
View ArticleThe Employment Situation and a Look to the Second Half
The Employment Situation Report was just released and it showed a loss of 125,000 in the Establishment Survey and a 301,000 loss in the Household Survey. The Household Survey also showed that the U-3...
View ArticleNon-Census Employment Up by 12,000 Jobs in July
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) today released the Employment Situation Report for July 2010. This report showed a loss of 131,000 in the Establishment Survey (the survey of businesses), with a...
View Article60,000 Non-Census Jobs Gained; Unemployment at 9.6%
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) today released the Employment Situation Report for August 2010. This report showed a loss of (54,000) in the Establishment Survey (the survey of businesses), with...
View Article+151,000 Jobs in October: Unemployment Rate at 9.6%
The BLS released the October Employment Situation today and it showed a gain of 151,000 jobs (with 159,000 being private sector gains). The unemployment rate *U-3) was unchanged at 9.6% and the U-6...
View ArticleJobs Report: Stick a Fork in the Doomers, they are Done.
Today's job report (BLS) should stick a fork in all the doomer hyperbole that seems to have a death grip over logic here recently. The report (and especially the revisions) show an economy that is...
View ArticleAnother Good Jobs Report: The Obama Economy is Doing Well
The BLS just released the jobs report for June 2013 and it beat expectations and included significant upward revisions to prior months. The Establishment Survey showed a total increase of 195,000 jobs...
View ArticleBlowout Jobs Report: +204k
The BLS released the employment situation summary for October today and it was a blowout report all around. The headline number showed (seasonally adjusted) job creation of 204k (with 212k private...
View ArticleNew Reuters Poll, No Hispanics?
A new Reuters poll was released today that appears to show Trump only a point behind Clinton over their rolling poll period (41.3% to Clinton, 40% to Trump, with 18.7% undecided). Reuters includes a...
View ArticleThis May be the Ad that Takes Down Trump
The new ad by Priorities USA, speaks to virtually everyone who knows someone who has a disability (which in today’s USA is practically everyone) and really goes to the heart of the Trump temperament...
View Article