Category Archives: Economy

Why Are Consumers So Confident?

Popular Economics Weekly Conference Board Rather than retreating mildly this month as expected, the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index edged up slightly from an upward-revised June level to stand at 129.1,” said Reuters.  That was a new pandemic-era high, although … Continue reading

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How Do We Ease our Workload?

Financial FAQs occupydemocrats.com Why do Americans worker harder with longer hours than in other developed countries? And why is America’s income inequality the worst in the developed world? Both questions can be quickly encapsulated by NYTimes’ columnists Bret Stephens and … Continue reading

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Retail Sales Splurge Won’t Last

Calculated Risk “Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for June 2021, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, according to the US Census Bureau, but not for price changes, were $621.3 billion, an increase of … Continue reading

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Why Keep Interest Rates This Low?

Financial FAQs FREDPersavings Inflation isn’t yet a problem, but are very low interest rates becoming a problem? Interest rates have been at record lows for years, thanks to the Federal Reserve that has been buying up enough bonds and mortgage … Continue reading

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Too Many Jobs to Fill?

Popular Economics Weekly Calculated Risk There are too many job vacancies at the moment, per the Labor Department’s JOLTS report; though it actually signals that  businesses seem to want workers for the same old jobs, but there’s now a mismatch. … Continue reading

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A Good Jobs Report

Popular Economics Weekly Market Watch We should be wishing everyone a Happy July Fourth, with the Bureau of Labor Department’s June unemployment report. Workers’ wages in the service sector are rising, with 850,000 new nonfarm payroll jobs added to the … Continue reading

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Consumer Confidence, Home Prices Soar For How Long?

Financial FAQs Conference Board Consumer confidence is at record highs, as growing numbers of consumers believe the roaring 2020’s recovery is here to stay. And it’s also sending home price increases to record highs. But this isn’t another housing bubble. … Continue reading

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What is Normal Inflation?

Popular Economics Weekly FREDcpi The financial markets were shocked, yes shocked, when the May Consumer Price Index for retail prices jumped 4.9 percent year-over-year. Just kidding. No one was really surprised because one year ago it wasn’t rising at all … Continue reading

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There Are More Jobs Than Ever!

Financial FAQs Calculated Risk The number of job openings reached a series high of 9.3 million on the last business day of April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last Tuesday. Hires were little changed at 6.1 million. Total separations … Continue reading

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Who Lost Their Jobs?

Popular Economics Weekly MarketWatch.com This would be a good jobs report at any other time. Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 559,000 in May, from a revised 278,000 jobs in May, and the unemployment rate declined by 0.3 percentage point … Continue reading

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