Analysis of current economic conditions and policy
Instantaneous Inflation in October
Core PPI flat, vs. +0.3% m/m consensus. Here’re instaneous core CPI and PPI inflation (per Eeckhout):
25 thoughts on “Instantaneous Inflation in October”
James
Summers now says inflation was due to “transitory factors” – LOL https://finance.yahoo.com/news/summers-says-transitory-factors-behind-001613380.html – but he contends the drop in inflation was due to “tighter Fed policy.” I can’t determine if Mr Summers argument is a cum hoc ergo propter hoc or post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. I do know – us working class folks will have to tighten out belts until we can’t get any credit to invest in energy efficient appliances.
Macroduck
Clothes line. Mop. Broom. Highly recommended, even if you have a healthy budget.
Nobody ever died from using hand-powered appliances. Well, almost nobody.
Moses Herzog
I get some kind of therapeutic pleasure out of putting a small amount of bleach in water, in a rectangle shaped pail. Using one of those super old school white mop heads, screwing the old school white mop head onto the broom handle and washing the entire kitchen floor. And this is coming from an extreme lazy man. It just feels so good. No reboots, no blue screen of deaths, no loud motors, no managerial dictums, no “woke”people looking for anything to be violated about. . Just swoosh swoosh swoosh, hand squeeze, dunk, swoosh swoosh swoosh and you know with a small ratio of bleach to water, the germs have been eliminated. It reminds me of my teacher dorm years in China. So good.
James
Menzie – what I don’t understand is why these economic pundits never mention the sure cure for inflation = increase taxes on wealthy. That would take a lot of speculative money out of the stock market (decrease investment in crypto); pay down national debt, and reduce wealth inequality. By the way, I’m always reminded of this when I drive by the Amazon warehouse here in Madison and I see people living rough in the wetlands behind the warehouse. The billionaire class can’t be bothered to contribute a few more pennies to improve the community but they gladly take advantage of the educated workforce and road network. Also – maybe a lot of inflation really was due to corporate price-gouging https://ritholtz.com/2023/11/revisiting-greedflation/
JohnH
” why [is it that] these economic pundits never mention the sure cure for inflation = increase taxes on wealthy?” For the same reason that mainstream economists are loath to say that Corporate America was a major driver of inflation.
Macroduck
Johnny tells the same lie, over and over, no matter how many times he’s shown to be lying.
Here’s a list of some of the economists who have publicly and explicitly called for higher taxes on the rich:
Thomas Piketty
Joseph Stiglitz
Joel Slemrod
Irem Guceri
Kenneth Scheve
David Stasavage
Emmanuel Saez
Gabriel Zucman
Jarod Bernstein
Jason Hickel
Jayati Ghosh
Kate Raworth
Lucas Chancel
Adrien Fabre
Agus Salim
Alex Clark
Alex Cobham
Alex Pies
Alice Krozer
Alvaro Conde
Ana Luiza Barbosa
Andrew Melville
Augusto Albuquerque
Axel Gastambide
Baptiste Willems
Brett Scott
Brendan Lynch
Chiril Gaburici
David Barkin
Dirk Bezemer
Dirk Philipsen
Dula Abdu
Edmund Valpy Fitzgerald
Edouard Dommen
Elli B. Tzatzanis-Stepanovic
Emilien Ravigné
Emmanuel Chavez
Enrique Provencio
Ernesto Tavera
Fernando Pimentel
Ferran Navinés
Gabriel Zucman
George Tchanturia
Gilles Marechal
Ha-Joon Chang
Haluk Levent
Hans Stegeman
Hernández Yefren
Himanshu Himanshu
Ida Krestine Bille Andersen
Idann Gidron
Ignacia Pinto
Inhoe Ku
Jad Moawad
James Meadway
Jason Hickel
Jayati Ghosh
Jérôme Lange
John Langmore
John Quiggin
José Torres
Juan Carlos Moreno Brid
Kaiser Bengali
Karla Ayala
Kathryn James
Kerstin Hötte
Kohei Saito
Kosal Nith
Krispijn Beek
Laura Bannister
Linda Van Goor
Lucas Chancel
Luis Barreto
Luisa Montes
Marie van Hasselt
Marcelo Oliveira
María Victoria Román de Lara
Martin Guzman
Mateus Labrunie
Matteo Gasparini
Matthew Cole
Mehmet Tuncel
Michael Mezzatesta
Michiel Welling
Miranda Stewart
Moisés Roberto Escobar
Muhammed Abdul Khalid
Natassia Nascimento
Niall Glynn
Nigel Driffield
Nuno Bigotte Santos
Octavio Quintero
Owen Gaffney
Óscar Cabrera Melgar
Patrick Eichelmann
Patrick Feltesse
Pete Barbrook-Johnson
Pramod Junankar
Raymundo Campos
Rémi Lei
Ricardo Martner
Rob Vos
Rosie Collington
Saskia ter Ellen
Stephan van Zyl
Sudhir Shrestha
Tim Polaszek
Tinghua Yu
Tom McDonnell
Tung Phung
Yanfe Zhou
Todd Ramsey
Subtracting those economists from the total number of economists in the world, that leaves about 19,900 economists who have not publicly and explicitly called for higher taxes on the rich.
JohnH
Tricky Ducky still doesn’t know how to read quotation marks. I was quoting James.
But seriously, Ducky, can you cite mainstream economists who have called for raising taxes on the wealthy specifically as a cure for inflation? It actually makes a lot of sense, since the wealthy account for a disproportionate share of spending power.
Sure lots of people have called for raising taxes on the wealthy over the years…but how many in the specific context of inflation since 2020?
Macroduck
Johnny is playing games. I’m able to show that plenty of economists have called for higher taxes on the rich. (That list is the 2023 version, by the way, not for all of time.) So Johnny insists that they have to have said that they called for tax hikes specifically as a response to inflation or it doesn’t count.
Johnny has made lots of accusations against economists, all of which show his ignorance of the actual profession of economics. When called out, he falls back on debating tricks like this one.
The economics profession is not in a debate with one ignorant guy named Johnny, so can’t be expected to have lined up to do whatever it is that Johnny requires of it in one particular blog comment. Johnny is simply wrong again about what economists think, and once again refuses to admit that he’s wrong.
samm
Because economic pundits are there to defend the faith, not give it such a blow as taxes on the wealthy.
JohnH
Barry Rotholtz: , Greedflation Revisited: “The “tell” about corporate profits and greedflation came after 2022 proved to be such a challenging year in the markets. Despite 500+ BPS of rate increases, a ~20% drop in the S&P500, and a 30+% drop in the Nasdaq 100, profits have remained much better than expected:
“A comparison shows how extraordinary our current inflationary distress actually has been and still is. Unlike during the 1970s, corporations today wield sufficient market power to effectively protect their profit mark-ups (and, by doing so, to realize higher profits) during a time of inflationary stress that is comparable to that of the 1970s.”
Even as inflation has come back down, the aftermath is that price increases have held. Corporate margins and profits could be the reason why price increases will stick, even as CPI falls back to normal. The rate of price increases may have normalized, but the absolute price levels today are much higher.
As Emily Stewart observed, “What goes up may not come down. Like, ever.”
Love that chart, pgl. It shows just how much corporate profits have skyrocketed!!!
Way to make your point!!!
pgl
JohnH
November 18, 2023 at 12:54 pm
I was clearly referring to what happened in the last year. I never denied they rose in 2021. But come on Jonny boy – remember your repeated claims about UK real wages under Cameron. They fell a LOT but little Jonny boy only wanted to look at what happened in a single year. Two faced lying is Jonny boy’s only skill.
pgl
If little Jonny boy wants to talk about corporate profits over an extended period of time – an honest discussion would do this as a share of GDI. Over Jonny boy is never honest and we know he is incapable of doing any real work, so permit me by looking at this ratio for the 2nd quarter of 2019 v. .2021, 2022, and 2023.
It was 9.61% as of 2019Q2 but yea it rose to 12.68% by 2021Q2. This ratio fell a bit by 2022Q2 to 12.28%. Something little Jonny boy denies. For 2023Q2? 10.9%.
So yea this ratio is coming back down despite how many stupid lies we get from little Jonny boy.
pgl
Nice chart:
https://ycharts.com/indicators/corporate_profits_usgdp
US Corporate Profits After Tax (I:USCPATGD)
10.73% of GDP for Q2 2023
‘US Corporate Profits After Tax is at 10.73%, compared to 10.74% last quarter and 12.33% last year.’
As I have been saying. 2023 lower than 2022 which was lower than 2021. Yes this ratio was around 12.8%, which WAS high.
I checked going back in history and it seems this ratio was above 12% back in early 2012. Of course little Jonny boy was totally unaware of that as his research skills SUCK.
But
pgl
“Over at Alphaville, Robin Wigglesworth looks at whether ‘Greedflation’ (aka price-gouging) meaningfully contributed to Eurozone inflation. Specifically, Bank of England research suggests that while they “find no evidence of a rise in overall profits in the UK” they did notice that “companies in the oil, gas and mining sectors have bucked the trend” with “some companies… much more profitable than others.”
Did little Jonny boy not read the FIRST paragraph. Yea – he has a chart about how markup rose in 2021. Hey Jonny boy – it is late 2023.
pgl
Jonny boy forgot to read the research from the UK:
How have profits behaved in this context of sustained level of inflation? In part, the answer depends on how ‘profits’ are defined. Some broad measures suggest increasing profits, but conflate market and non-market sector dynamics and omit important corporate costs. We construct an alternative measure of corporate profits to capture UK firm earnings in excess of all production costs. This measure has been declining since the start of 2022, consistent with evidence from historical energy shocks. This decline has not been uniform across firms, however: firms with higher market power have been better able to increase their margins; others have experienced large declines.
We have been through this before little Jonny. If you provide a link – do bother to READ it before making a total fool out of yourself.
pgl
Profits in a time of inflation: what do company accounts say in the UK and euro area? By
Gabija Zemaityte and Danny Walker, November 16, 2023
“We compute the ratio of profits to value added for all non-financial listed companies in the UK and the euro area. The profit measure we use is earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), which is a standard accounting measure. Value added is defined as EBIT plus total wage and salary costs at the company level. This measure naturally avoids some of the issues that distort the national accounting data, such as the inclusion of non-market income, tax and self-employment or mixed income.”
I should note that this is a proper way of capturing whether the profit share rose relative to the labor share so maybe we should applaud Jonny boy for letting us know about this analysis EVEN THOUGH Jonny boy once again failed to read it. So permit me to tell everyone what they found:
“How has the profit share been so stable? Profits have increased significantly in nominal terms in the UK and euro area, by somewhat more in the UK than in the euro area. But this increase in profits has been accompanied by sharp increases in inputs costs. Indeed, total costs – defined as the sum of the cost of goods sold, wages and salaries – has increased by around 60% in the Euro area since 2020, and around 80% in the UK. The level of the profit share reflects the set of companies captured in the sample, which tend to be larger, more profitable and more capital-intensive than the average in the economy as a whole – and the oil and gas sector is over-represented. These compositional issues mean we should focus on analysing changes in the UK or euro area over time, rather than differences between the two. But it is notable that in aggregate, the profit share has been broadly stable even when excluding oil, gas and mining sectors.”
Oh my – this contradicts what little Jonny boy has been saying. Thanks Jonny boy for providing us actual analyzes that rebut your BS. Maybe someday you will learn to READ your own links before making a fool out of yourself.
pgl
“Summers, a Harvard University professor and paid contributor to Bloomberg TV, was prominent in predicting a surge in inflation and in criticizing the arguments of “Team Transitory.”
So Summers was against Team Transitory before he decided to join the same team?
Macroduck
Jobless claims for last week were reported today. New claims rose to the highest level since the week of August 19:
New Deal Democrat has pointed out the leading nature of new jobless claims. There is very little lag between layoffs and claims in reality, but claims are reported nearly two months earlier.
Initial jobless claims and JOLTS Layoffs and Discharges starting in 2000:
This ratio gives a notion of two things mixed together – whether those who lose jobs are able to find a new job before filing for benefits, and the share if those laid off who are eligible for benefits. The current ratio is pretty health compared to most times prior to 2015, but high relative to anything between 2015 and the onset of Covid.
By the way, hiring peaked around November 2021, and layoffs began to pick up fairly persistently in May of 2022:
In the picture, both series have been indexed to January of 2021, to show fluctuations more clearly. Hires are still well above layoffs.
Macroduck
For those who like data cooked up and served, Statista is a good place to look. I think their goal is to show off what their product can do. Anyhow, immigrant employment performance is the theme of the day. The results make one question what all the immigrant angst is about.
Fed officials generally try to look past energy prices, but consumers, as we know, tend to associate inflation with energy prices. Lower energy prices represent a reduced headwind to consumer spending and economic growth outside the energy sector.
Summers now says inflation was due to “transitory factors” – LOL https://finance.yahoo.com/news/summers-says-transitory-factors-behind-001613380.html – but he contends the drop in inflation was due to “tighter Fed policy.” I can’t determine if Mr Summers argument is a cum hoc ergo propter hoc or post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. I do know – us working class folks will have to tighten out belts until we can’t get any credit to invest in energy efficient appliances.
Clothes line. Mop. Broom. Highly recommended, even if you have a healthy budget.
Nobody ever died from using hand-powered appliances. Well, almost nobody.
I get some kind of therapeutic pleasure out of putting a small amount of bleach in water, in a rectangle shaped pail. Using one of those super old school white mop heads, screwing the old school white mop head onto the broom handle and washing the entire kitchen floor. And this is coming from an extreme lazy man. It just feels so good. No reboots, no blue screen of deaths, no loud motors, no managerial dictums, no “woke”people looking for anything to be violated about. . Just swoosh swoosh swoosh, hand squeeze, dunk, swoosh swoosh swoosh and you know with a small ratio of bleach to water, the germs have been eliminated. It reminds me of my teacher dorm years in China. So good.
Menzie – what I don’t understand is why these economic pundits never mention the sure cure for inflation = increase taxes on wealthy. That would take a lot of speculative money out of the stock market (decrease investment in crypto); pay down national debt, and reduce wealth inequality. By the way, I’m always reminded of this when I drive by the Amazon warehouse here in Madison and I see people living rough in the wetlands behind the warehouse. The billionaire class can’t be bothered to contribute a few more pennies to improve the community but they gladly take advantage of the educated workforce and road network. Also – maybe a lot of inflation really was due to corporate price-gouging https://ritholtz.com/2023/11/revisiting-greedflation/
” why [is it that] these economic pundits never mention the sure cure for inflation = increase taxes on wealthy?” For the same reason that mainstream economists are loath to say that Corporate America was a major driver of inflation.
Johnny tells the same lie, over and over, no matter how many times he’s shown to be lying.
Here’s a list of some of the economists who have publicly and explicitly called for higher taxes on the rich:
Thomas Piketty
Joseph Stiglitz
Joel Slemrod
Irem Guceri
Kenneth Scheve
David Stasavage
Emmanuel Saez
Gabriel Zucman
Jarod Bernstein
Jason Hickel
Jayati Ghosh
Kate Raworth
Lucas Chancel
Adrien Fabre
Agus Salim
Alex Clark
Alex Cobham
Alex Pies
Alice Krozer
Alvaro Conde
Ana Luiza Barbosa
Andrew Melville
Augusto Albuquerque
Axel Gastambide
Baptiste Willems
Brett Scott
Brendan Lynch
Chiril Gaburici
David Barkin
Dirk Bezemer
Dirk Philipsen
Dula Abdu
Edmund Valpy Fitzgerald
Edouard Dommen
Elli B. Tzatzanis-Stepanovic
Emilien Ravigné
Emmanuel Chavez
Enrique Provencio
Ernesto Tavera
Fernando Pimentel
Ferran Navinés
Gabriel Zucman
George Tchanturia
Gilles Marechal
Ha-Joon Chang
Haluk Levent
Hans Stegeman
Hernández Yefren
Himanshu Himanshu
Ida Krestine Bille Andersen
Idann Gidron
Ignacia Pinto
Inhoe Ku
Jad Moawad
James Meadway
Jason Hickel
Jayati Ghosh
Jérôme Lange
John Langmore
John Quiggin
José Torres
Juan Carlos Moreno Brid
Kaiser Bengali
Karla Ayala
Kathryn James
Kerstin Hötte
Kohei Saito
Kosal Nith
Krispijn Beek
Laura Bannister
Linda Van Goor
Lucas Chancel
Luis Barreto
Luisa Montes
Marie van Hasselt
Marcelo Oliveira
María Victoria Román de Lara
Martin Guzman
Mateus Labrunie
Matteo Gasparini
Matthew Cole
Mehmet Tuncel
Michael Mezzatesta
Michiel Welling
Miranda Stewart
Moisés Roberto Escobar
Muhammed Abdul Khalid
Natassia Nascimento
Niall Glynn
Nigel Driffield
Nuno Bigotte Santos
Octavio Quintero
Owen Gaffney
Óscar Cabrera Melgar
Patrick Eichelmann
Patrick Feltesse
Pete Barbrook-Johnson
Pramod Junankar
Raymundo Campos
Rémi Lei
Ricardo Martner
Rob Vos
Rosie Collington
Saskia ter Ellen
Stephan van Zyl
Sudhir Shrestha
Tim Polaszek
Tinghua Yu
Tom McDonnell
Tung Phung
Yanfe Zhou
Subtracting those economists from the total number of economists in the world, that leaves about 19,900 economists who have not publicly and explicitly called for higher taxes on the rich.
Tricky Ducky still doesn’t know how to read quotation marks. I was quoting James.
But seriously, Ducky, can you cite mainstream economists who have called for raising taxes on the wealthy specifically as a cure for inflation? It actually makes a lot of sense, since the wealthy account for a disproportionate share of spending power.
Sure lots of people have called for raising taxes on the wealthy over the years…but how many in the specific context of inflation since 2020?
Johnny is playing games. I’m able to show that plenty of economists have called for higher taxes on the rich. (That list is the 2023 version, by the way, not for all of time.) So Johnny insists that they have to have said that they called for tax hikes specifically as a response to inflation or it doesn’t count.
Johnny has made lots of accusations against economists, all of which show his ignorance of the actual profession of economics. When called out, he falls back on debating tricks like this one.
The economics profession is not in a debate with one ignorant guy named Johnny, so can’t be expected to have lined up to do whatever it is that Johnny requires of it in one particular blog comment. Johnny is simply wrong again about what economists think, and once again refuses to admit that he’s wrong.
Because economic pundits are there to defend the faith, not give it such a blow as taxes on the wealthy.
Barry Rotholtz: , Greedflation Revisited: “The “tell” about corporate profits and greedflation came after 2022 proved to be such a challenging year in the markets. Despite 500+ BPS of rate increases, a ~20% drop in the S&P500, and a 30+% drop in the Nasdaq 100, profits have remained much better than expected:
“A comparison shows how extraordinary our current inflationary distress actually has been and still is. Unlike during the 1970s, corporations today wield sufficient market power to effectively protect their profit mark-ups (and, by doing so, to realize higher profits) during a time of inflationary stress that is comparable to that of the 1970s.”
Even as inflation has come back down, the aftermath is that price increases have held. Corporate margins and profits could be the reason why price increases will stick, even as CPI falls back to normal. The rate of price increases may have normalized, but the absolute price levels today are much higher.
As Emily Stewart observed, “What goes up may not come down. Like, ever.”
Let’s hope she is wrong…”
https://ritholtz.com/2023/11/revisiting-greedflation/
“What goes up may not come down. Like, ever.”
Excuse me troll but for the 100th time, corporate profits have come down:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CP/
Corporate Profits After Tax (without IVA and CCAdj)
Now who is lying here? FRED or little Jonny boy.
Love that chart, pgl. It shows just how much corporate profits have skyrocketed!!!
Way to make your point!!!
JohnH
November 18, 2023 at 12:54 pm
I was clearly referring to what happened in the last year. I never denied they rose in 2021. But come on Jonny boy – remember your repeated claims about UK real wages under Cameron. They fell a LOT but little Jonny boy only wanted to look at what happened in a single year. Two faced lying is Jonny boy’s only skill.
If little Jonny boy wants to talk about corporate profits over an extended period of time – an honest discussion would do this as a share of GDI. Over Jonny boy is never honest and we know he is incapable of doing any real work, so permit me by looking at this ratio for the 2nd quarter of 2019 v. .2021, 2022, and 2023.
It was 9.61% as of 2019Q2 but yea it rose to 12.68% by 2021Q2. This ratio fell a bit by 2022Q2 to 12.28%. Something little Jonny boy denies. For 2023Q2? 10.9%.
So yea this ratio is coming back down despite how many stupid lies we get from little Jonny boy.
Nice chart:
https://ycharts.com/indicators/corporate_profits_usgdp
US Corporate Profits After Tax (I:USCPATGD)
10.73% of GDP for Q2 2023
‘US Corporate Profits After Tax is at 10.73%, compared to 10.74% last quarter and 12.33% last year.’
As I have been saying. 2023 lower than 2022 which was lower than 2021. Yes this ratio was around 12.8%, which WAS high.
I checked going back in history and it seems this ratio was above 12% back in early 2012. Of course little Jonny boy was totally unaware of that as his research skills SUCK.
But
“Over at Alphaville, Robin Wigglesworth looks at whether ‘Greedflation’ (aka price-gouging) meaningfully contributed to Eurozone inflation. Specifically, Bank of England research suggests that while they “find no evidence of a rise in overall profits in the UK” they did notice that “companies in the oil, gas and mining sectors have bucked the trend” with “some companies… much more profitable than others.”
Did little Jonny boy not read the FIRST paragraph. Yea – he has a chart about how markup rose in 2021. Hey Jonny boy – it is late 2023.
Jonny boy forgot to read the research from the UK:
https://bankunderground.co.uk/2023/08/30/profits-in-a-time-of-inflation-some-insights-from-recent-and-past-energy-shocks-in-the-uk/
How have profits behaved in this context of sustained level of inflation? In part, the answer depends on how ‘profits’ are defined. Some broad measures suggest increasing profits, but conflate market and non-market sector dynamics and omit important corporate costs. We construct an alternative measure of corporate profits to capture UK firm earnings in excess of all production costs. This measure has been declining since the start of 2022, consistent with evidence from historical energy shocks. This decline has not been uniform across firms, however: firms with higher market power have been better able to increase their margins; others have experienced large declines.
We have been through this before little Jonny. If you provide a link – do bother to READ it before making a total fool out of yourself.
Profits in a time of inflation: what do company accounts say in the UK and euro area? By
Gabija Zemaityte and Danny Walker, November 16, 2023
“We compute the ratio of profits to value added for all non-financial listed companies in the UK and the euro area. The profit measure we use is earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), which is a standard accounting measure. Value added is defined as EBIT plus total wage and salary costs at the company level. This measure naturally avoids some of the issues that distort the national accounting data, such as the inclusion of non-market income, tax and self-employment or mixed income.”
I should note that this is a proper way of capturing whether the profit share rose relative to the labor share so maybe we should applaud Jonny boy for letting us know about this analysis EVEN THOUGH Jonny boy once again failed to read it. So permit me to tell everyone what they found:
“How has the profit share been so stable? Profits have increased significantly in nominal terms in the UK and euro area, by somewhat more in the UK than in the euro area. But this increase in profits has been accompanied by sharp increases in inputs costs. Indeed, total costs – defined as the sum of the cost of goods sold, wages and salaries – has increased by around 60% in the Euro area since 2020, and around 80% in the UK. The level of the profit share reflects the set of companies captured in the sample, which tend to be larger, more profitable and more capital-intensive than the average in the economy as a whole – and the oil and gas sector is over-represented. These compositional issues mean we should focus on analysing changes in the UK or euro area over time, rather than differences between the two. But it is notable that in aggregate, the profit share has been broadly stable even when excluding oil, gas and mining sectors.”
Oh my – this contradicts what little Jonny boy has been saying. Thanks Jonny boy for providing us actual analyzes that rebut your BS. Maybe someday you will learn to READ your own links before making a fool out of yourself.
“Summers, a Harvard University professor and paid contributor to Bloomberg TV, was prominent in predicting a surge in inflation and in criticizing the arguments of “Team Transitory.”
So Summers was against Team Transitory before he decided to join the same team?
Jobless claims for last week were reported today. New claims rose to the highest level since the week of August 19:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1bsSj
New Deal Democrat has pointed out the leading nature of new jobless claims. There is very little lag between layoffs and claims in reality, but claims are reported nearly two months earlier.
Initial jobless claims and JOLTS Layoffs and Discharges starting in 2000:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1bsKs
Same two series more recently:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1bsLM
It looks like layoffs are in for a modest rise in October and November readings.
Just for fun, the ratio of new claims to JOLTS Layoffs and Discharges:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1bsN8
This ratio gives a notion of two things mixed together – whether those who lose jobs are able to find a new job before filing for benefits, and the share if those laid off who are eligible for benefits. The current ratio is pretty health compared to most times prior to 2015, but high relative to anything between 2015 and the onset of Covid.
By the way, hiring peaked around November 2021, and layoffs began to pick up fairly persistently in May of 2022:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1bsRn
In the picture, both series have been indexed to January of 2021, to show fluctuations more clearly. Hires are still well above layoffs.
For those who like data cooked up and served, Statista is a good place to look. I think their goal is to show off what their product can do. Anyhow, immigrant employment performance is the theme of the day. The results make one question what all the immigrant angst is about.
https://www.statista.com/chart/31268/unemployment-rate-gap-between-migrants-and-the-native-born-population-in-selected-oecd-countries/?utm_source=Statista+Newsletters&utm_campaign=665f2b2ae2-All_InfographTicker_daily_COM_PM_KW46_2023_Th&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_662f7ed75e-665f2b2ae2-354581950
The Institute for Policy Studies on the charitable giving grift used by the rich:
https://ips-dc.org/report-true-cost-of-billionaire-philanthropy/
This is, of course, not new news:
theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/08/how-philanthropy-benefits-the-super-rich
Speaking of inflation, or prices, anyway…
Gasoline and WTI price levels – falling pretty sharply:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1btKS
Both down from a year ago:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1btLj
Fed officials generally try to look past energy prices, but consumers, as we know, tend to associate inflation with energy prices. Lower energy prices represent a reduced headwind to consumer spending and economic growth outside the energy sector.
Someone is going to be soooo disappointed.