Post Tagged with: "jobs"
[Premium] Daily commentary: On monetary policy in a balance sheet recession
There has been a lot of back and forth by academic economists on monetary policy. The reason is two-fold. First, during the so-called Great Moderation many economists increasingly looked to monetary over fiscal policy for countercyclical support. Second, even so, fiscal support is expected to wane, making some nervous about the durability of recovery
[Premium] Daily commentary: As predicted, the US jobs report was weak
I wrote you last week after the third consecutive elevated jobless claims report, saying this was a definite harbinger of a weak jobs report. This has proved true. While March’s gain of 120,000 jobs was revised up to 154,000 and unemployment declined from 8.2% to 8.1%, payrolls rose by only 115,
Chart of the day: US Manufacturing Employment, 1960-2012
Note the peak in manufacturing jobs in June 1977, which represented 22 percent of all nonfarm payrolls, then, to fall to less than 9 percent of total employment today. It’s too earlier to claim victory with the current recovery in the manufacturing sector, but it is the the first positive slope since mid-1990′s
[Premium] Expect a weak US jobs report in May
The jobless claims came out again today and the numbers were weak
Chart of the day: US jobs recovered since crisis began by industry
Today we look at the jobs recovery by various industries
What about all those excess reserves at the Fed?
The Fed is out of bullets on interest rate policy and has turned to other nonconventional measures like quantitative easing. Excess reserves have piled up as a result. What does this mean for inflation and the economy
[Premium] Latest US weekly unemployment claims reports suggest weakening job growth
In the week just ended, the US Department of Labor is reporting the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims as 386,000. While this is a decrease of 2,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 388,000 it is well above the 4-week moving average, which has now moved up to 374,750. Moreover, claims are
The economy is nowhere near as robust as stocks would have you believe
The jobs numbers were disappointing. From a policy perspective, the hope is that we can keep stimulus in the queue long enough so that the cyclical hiring trends pick up before overindebted consumers get fatigued again. But underneath things are very fragile. Any setback in the economy will be met with populist outrage – that you can bet on
Quick Thoughts on the US Jobs Data
One word can summarize today’s report: disappointing. The 120k rise in the headline figure was roughly half of the whisper figure. The unemployment rate ticked down to 8.2%, but the details are disappointing
Chart of the day: Job Creation 2007-2012
Here’s what I see: job destruction during a cyclical downturn followed by massive job destruction after the Lehman failure followed by a steady climb toward tepid job creation. Take a look
Why Minsky Matters
My friend Steve Keen recently presented a “primer” on Hyman Minsky. In his piece, Steve criticized the methodology used by Paul Krugman and argued that Krugman could learn a lot from Minsky. In particular Krugman’s equilibrium approach and primitive dynamics was contrasted to Minsky’s rich analysis. Finally, Krugman’s model of debt deflation dynamics left out banks–while banks always played an important role in Minsky’s approach. This post is to help explain why Hyman Minsky matters by quickly summarizing Minsky’s main areas of research. Next week I will post up more on Minsky’s view of “money and banking”
Dollar Soft, Bernanke Misunderstood
Judging from the press coverage, we suspect many observers have misunderstood Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke’s comments yesterday. They need to be placed in the context of what went before: namely several hawkish regional presidents spoke, seemingly raising the prospect of a hike as early as next year and a backing up in US yields. His comments justified the continued accommodative policy a necessary to make further progress in reducing unemployment, which he argues requires a faster growing economy