That’s the title of my “No Jargon” podcast on the Scholars Strategy Network, posted yesterday.
“When Tariffs Hit Home”
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Private Employment Growth at a Crawl, Small Firms Gain, Manufacturing Down
+22K vs. Bloomberg consensus of +46K, down from December (rev’d) +37K. Alternative business cycle indicators incorporating these figures show the labor market growth at near zero:
More Tough Times for US Agriculture?
From NYT today “Former Farming Leaders Warn U.S. Agriculture Could Face ‘Widespread Collapse'”:
While there are many reasons for increasing farm bankruptcies and decreasing profits, “it is clear that the current administration’s actions, along with congressional inaction, have increased costs for farm inputs, disrupted overseas and domestic markets, denied agriculture its reliable labor pool, and defunded critical ag research and staffing,” the letter warned.
Business Cycle Indicators in the Absence of 2026M1 Employment
Due to the Federal government shutdown, the employment release is going to be delayed. Here are NBER business cycle indicators, including the latest monthly GDP, that we have now:
EJ Antoni on Warsh Nomination: “… a great pick”
Nowcasting “Core GDP”
From Atlanta Fed and Goldman Sachs, numbers that perhaps better represent the trajectory of aggregate demand.
Pass-Through
A random thought on Trump’s moves to depreciate the dollar and to implement broad and high tariffs. The dollar has depreciated on a real trade weighted basis by about 6.6% in December (in log terms). Average effective tariff rates have risen from about 2% to 12%. What’s the impact on import prices, based on earlier estimates?
Import Trends: Output, Policy Uncertainty, and/or Tariffs
As i was producing some extra slides for my macro course, I generated this graph:
BLS Commissioner Nominee Brett Matsumoto
Articles or comments in peer reviewed journals, per Google Scholar:
PPI Blows Past Expectations
M/M PPI +0.5% vs.+ 0.2% Bloomberg consensus; m/m core PPI +0.7% vs. +0.2% consensus. Here’s instantaneous (per Eeckhout, 2023) PPI and PCE vs q/q CPI: