James Hamilton, at Econbrowser, notes that he’s surprised by the 0.75% increase in average house prices (as measured by the S&P/Case-Shiller Index of twenty cities). He also says he’s skeptical because of the backlog of unsold homes, likely increases in foreclosures, and high, rising unemployment, especially since Calculated Risk is, too.
Robert Kuttner notes an interesting tidbit from, wouldn’t you know it, the Wall Street Journal: since 2001, wages in Europe have been keeping up with inflation and the employment rate has also been rising. Yet in the US, wages have been falling behind the inflation rate and the employment rate has also been sagging. This flies in the face of the conventional economic “wisdom,” which assumes that businesses will hire more workers when the (real, i.e., adjusted-for-inflation) wage is [...] read more >
Jared Bernstein (among many many many many many others, including Jonathan, who beat me to the punch below) dissects todays job numbers at EPI’s Job Picture. Particularly telling is this graph:
It shows that year-on-year job growth (a better indicator than the more volatile weekly or monthly job numbers that are widely reported) has been falling dramatically for almost a year now.
UPDATE:
Here’s an even bigger picture from Calculated Risk’s entry on [...] read more >
I admit to feeling some of that “lack of consumer confidence” myself. No pink slips at my workplace, not that I’ve heard rumor about at least, but news like this doesn’t help.
Employers cut 17,000 jobs from their payrolls in January, Labor Department figures showed. Economists had been expecting a rise of 80,000.
…
The job losses were across all sectors of the economy including manufacturing and professional services.
“The economy is in recession mode,” said Peter Morici, an economist at the University [...] read more >
Today’s NYTimes article on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s testimony to Congress yesterday, and the simultaneous drop in the stock market, includes a few noteworthy passages:
The stock market plunged again on Thursday on bad economic news, taking little comfort from reassuring words by the chairman of the Federal Reserve or an emerging consensus about a stimulus plan that many worry could be too late.
On a day when stocks were pushed down another 3 percent on reports of more weakness [...] read more >
I try to follow the rule that blog posts should be more than just a “hey, check this out,” and a link. But I guess some rules are made to be broken. I don’t have much to say about this, but it is definitely worth listening to.
NPR.org, August 8, 2007 · The first morning of my visit to Scenic Trails, I was walking the path between some trailers when I bumped into a man named Tim Szepek. He was young, [...] read more >
By Jonathan Teller-Elsberg, CPE Staff Economist
In the U.S., talk of tax reform usually means debates about taxes on income and wealth. A little less common are discussions of flat taxes and a shift from payroll, income, investment, or property taxes to consumption taxes—that is, a federal sales tax.
We’ve seen the miserable results of lowering taxes on the rich, and we’ll be dealing with the massive government debts for decades to come. Flat taxes are simply another way to [...] read more >
