Business Cycle Indicators as of March 1st

S&P Global (formerly Macroeconomic Advisers) released monthly GDP for January today, indicating a rebound in activity – 0.3% m/m growth. Adding this to a graph of key indicators followed by the NBER BCDC yields the following:

Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment, NFP (dark blue), Bloomberg consensus of 3/1 (blue +), civilian employment (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding transfers in Ch.2012$ (green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2012$ (black), consumption in Ch.2012$ (light blue), and monthly GDP in Ch.2012$ (pink), GDP (blue bars), all log normalized to 2021M11=0. Q3 Source: BLS, Federal Reserve, BEA 2022Q4 2nd release via FRED, S&P Global/IHS Markit (nee Macroeconomic Advisers) (3/1/2023 release), and author’s calculations.

31 thoughts on “Business Cycle Indicators as of March 1st

  1. Macroduck

    What’s tracked in the figure is personal income less transfers. That gets closer to the income dynamics of private activity, but misses big swings in transfers, which have direct effect on demand. Today, the first day of March, yet another Covid-related transfer program aimed at reducing poverty expired. SNAP benefits have been cut. Don’t worry, though, as food assistance to the poor only falls by $3 billion annually:

    https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/politics/food-stamps-pandemic-emergency-allotments/index.html

    That’s a drop in the ocean compared to earlier cuts. Oh, and the Supreme Court may be about to prevent college debt forgiveness. Don’t know whether Biden will be able to extend the payment moratorium, or whether he’ll choose to if he’s able.

    1. Moses Herzog

      Bank of Canada announcing a rate changing “pause”. Thought that was interesting.

  2. David S

    I’m trying to find the recession we’re having this year in that chart. Also, there’s supposed to be a collapse of prices in the housing market, which means that a 2 million dollar house in San Francisco could be purchased for the bargain basement price of…..1.9 million dollars. Fortunately, I’m protecting myself. I got some GPU’s on sale and have set up a crypto mining operation in my basement. I will not simply survive, I shall prevail!

  3. David S

    Moses, you have to understand that technology is cyclical. And, with Sam Bankman Fried about to go to prison enterprising youths like me need to take advantage of openings in the market whenever we can find them.

    1. Moses Herzog

      You are unintentionally cracking me up. You don’t think Bankman-Fried fraudster types are common in crypto, and that there might be an important lesson or clue for you there?? You saw the buzzards circling in the sky overhead and thought “Yeah, I think I’ll hang out with those guys for awhile.” ??

  4. Moses Herzog

    It was an inevitability. Written in the stars. The woman who couldn’t/can’t speak proper oral English if her life was dependent on it, coming to the rescue of a useless leader. When I was teaching English in China, if I had wanted to show my students examples of native English speakers who spoke English worse than my brighter students, I would have shown them video tapes of either “W” Bush or Donna Brazile, and we’d have had a field day (probably would have taken half the semester) finding errors in their oral English.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/02/opinion/kamala-harris-vice-president-expectations.html

    1. Macroduck

      Brazil is smoothing the path ahead of Biden’s announcement, just in case he announces his retirement. Early loyalty is often the most highly rewarded loyalty. Who dod Brazil back in the 2020 primary season?

      1. Moses Herzog

        I’m tempted to give a Donna Brazile style answer “Look, aduh endue deday, we really don’t know” I’m not taking cheap shots, that is the actual way Brazile talks. UNBELIEVABLE!!!! How does someone who talks that way teach at TWO Division 1 universities?? Wow, where do I sign up to speak like….. and get two professorships. Damn man. I just hope she doesn’t feel too much “systemic racism” to murder the English language and get two professorships in the process.

        I know this, after spoon-feeding Hillary Clinton predetermined questions for a CNN debate, Brazile dropped Hillary like a hot potato smeared with a Covid-19 infested loogie after Brazile was one of the last 3 people in America to realize post-2016 Hillary could only win the seat of dog catcher inside the confines of New York state.

      2. Moses Herzog

        It is interesting you bring up who Brazil backs, right?? Who got Hillary into deeper trouble in ALL of her badly managed, horrendously bad strategized, and failed presidential campaigns?? Female flatterers constantly repeating back to Hillary her own decisions, echoing back to Hillary every strategy she prescribed for herself was “political genius”, to go on and lose the entire Midwest USA electorate. Democrats can’t lose the South AND the Midwest in a presidential election. And if Donna “I Can’t Speak Oral English” Brazile comes within 500 miles of any Democrat’s campaign “brain trust” they will be doomed before leaving the starting gate..

  5. Moses Herzog

    Looks like an interesting WSJ article on a former Morgan Stanley guy named Pavel Sorokin who is helping Putin with his energy problems. I won’t be able to read all of it until tomorrow but I bet it’s a good one. Written by Benoit Faucon.

    Sorokin is a common Russian/Belarus Jewish name, which apparently means something similar to “magpie” or some bird. That’s for all my Judeophile homies out there.

  6. pgl

    Kelly Anne Alternative Facts Conway is baaaacK!

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/kellyanne-conway-brazenly-gaslights-fox-news-viewers-with-bizarre-challenge/ar-AA187ker?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=86f27035e5214c3bbe6b65f12ec163df&ei=9

    Kellyanne Conway Brazenly Gaslights Fox News Viewers With Bizarre ‘Challenge’
    Kellyanne Conway, famous purveyor of “alternative facts,” went on Fox News on Wednesday to attack the press for being dishonest. The former Trump White House counselor joined Sean Hannity for a segment about the “lying corrupt media mob,” as an on-screen graphic called it, ostensibly referring to all mainstream media that isn’t Fox News. “I want to challenge people watching tonight who don’t wear red hats, don’t consider themselves MAGA, don’t consider themselves very strong political people,” Conway told viewers of the right-wing network, which is currently fighting a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit for amplifying lies about the 2020 presidential election. “I want you to ask yourself how many times you’ve been lied to, not just by this government, but how many times you were lied to by the people whose job it is to tell you the truth in the media,” she continued. “All in the service of ‘getting’ the president. Trump derangement syndrome is real.”

    The story continues by noting how it is Faux News and Kelly Anne that have lied to us over and over again. Yea – we were lied to by the government when Trump was in charge. Take a bow Kelly Anne.

  7. pgl

    One of the more comical debates here were between JohnH and his BFF Princeton make up numbers as he goes Steve. JohnH is under the impression that Putin’s Russia can never run out of foreign exchange (yea Jonny boy flunked basic monetary economics) while Stevie made up a bunch of his fake numbers to argue Russia will run out of foreign exchange in months, which only goes to show why Deloitte Hungary fired Stevie.

    Well here is an intermediate view:

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/russian-billionaire-deripaska-makes-rare-critique-warns-russia-could-run-out-of-money-next-year/ar-AA188Qs0?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=70db3ed444114235b2ac5463929ff3d9&ei=29

    Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska criticized Moscow officials on Thursday for pushing away foreign investors and warned that Russia stands to run out of cash as soon as next year without additional funds—sounding an alarm on the country’s business climate as the war on Ukraine exhausts spending and raises questions about how long Russia can operate on a deficit. Speaking at the Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum in Siberia, Deripaska, 55, said he’s “very worried all the time that the state and business are constantly being set against each other,” and posited a de-escalation in Russia’s war on Ukraine won’t happen before 2025—potentially keeping Western investors away from Russia for another decade. “There will be no money already next year… That’s why they’ve already begun to shake us down,” continued Deripaska, an aluminum tycoon who founded Russian industrial group Basic Element, adding that the nation “needs” foreign investors to continue operating. The eyebrow-raising criticism from an oligarch who’s been sanctioned for ties to the Kremlin comes just weeks after Putin vowed there would be no reduction in military expenditures, telling officials Russia has “no limitations” on spending for the war in Ukraine and is “giving everything that the army asks for” in order to help secure victory.n“Russia should keep developing the market economy,” Deripaska said Thursday, warning of the “serious” consequences of ongoing sanctions against Russia and cautioning, “State capitalism is not an option.”

    Whether Deripaska presented his credible analysis of his claim that Russia will run of funds next year is not noted here but I’m he knows a lot more than the world’s worst accountant – Princeton Steve.

      1. pgl

        “The construction of a secret naval staging facility for Chinese military vessels off the coast of Cambodia was detailed at the DGI London conference on 28 February by geospatial intelligence company BlackSky.”

        ltr would call this China investing in a developing nation.

      2. Moses Herzog

        “ltr” is probably leading the underground resistance in Xinjiang. Making sure the Volkswagens get to market. We know Volkswagen must be proud and Americans purchasing VWs from a company that profits from slave labor also must be proud. It’s part of the new “woke” movement from young Americans. Showing us the way forward. Or perhaps “ltr” is getting a Master’s in Gender Studies. Assuring the modern Han women of 2023 they can now wear footwear that doesn’t cut off circulation and their mother-in-law will no longer pin them down to a large boulder for hubby’s access as long as they have a male child on the first try. Onward and upward.

        By the way, if you work at VW, if anyone brings up slave labor in Urumqi when thinking about purchasing a Volkswagen car, remember American minimum wage employers’ mantra and repeat like Republican/MAGA politicians “We are the ‘JOB CREATORS’ ” “We are the ‘JOB CREATORS’ ” “We are the ‘JOB CREATORS’ ” “We are the ‘JOB CREATORS’ “ and see if that works in Europe, China, etc like it does on the white trash illiterates of America. I mean, probably.

        “We” (Beijing) figured out, in the last 6 months, that a functioning economy might be better than starving people to death in their own apartment houses so, I mean, no one can say Beijing aren’t quick-witted learners. Nobody can say that. Beijing sure castrated that Hu Jintao guy though, didn’t they?? I haven’t seen masculinity that strong since donald trump thought Merkel had the cooties.

    1. Ivan

      Deripaska is probably being scheduled for unscheduled flying lessons as we speak. Russia has been plundered for decades by its kleptocrats. Now that Putin is running out of money to finance his war, he has no other choice than to take it from those same people. A thief stealing from other thiefs. Not pretty and they are off course complaining – but what are they going to do about it?

  8. pgl

    Bruce Hall from the State of Michigan assuredly dislikes his Attorney General. Now I wonder what Brucie knows about this:

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/heavily-armed-man-targeted-michigan-attorney-general-dana-nessel-says-rcna73048

    Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel was targeted last month by a “heavily armed” man who threatened injury and death to Jewish members of the state government, she said Thursday morning. Jack Eugene Carpenter III is accused of tweeting: “I’m heading back to Michigan now threatening to carry out the punishment of death to anyone that is jewish in the Michigan govt if they don’t leave, or confess, and now that kind of problem,” according to a criminal complaint filed Feb. 18. “Because I can Legally do that, right?” he added, according to the FBI affidavit. Carpenter’s mother confirmed to investigators that the tweets came from him and that to her knowledge, he was in possession of “three handguns, a 12 gauge shotgun, and two hunting rifles, one of which is an MIA, military-style weapon,” the complaint said.

    Nessel, a Democrat, said Thursday in a tweet that the FBI confirmed she had been one of the officials targeted by “the heavily armed defendant in this matter.” “It is my sincere hope that the federal authorities take this offense just as seriously as my Hate Crimes & Domestic Terrorism Unit takes plots to murder elected officials,” she said.

    1. Moses Herzog

      What are you talking about?? There are at least 20 men in the Michigan Liberty Militia that say Eugene was with them at the Dairy Queen that whole time!!!!

  9. pgl

    Murdoch to fire certain members of Faux News:

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/sean-hannity-maria-bartiromo-jeanine-pirro-top-tv-stars-tipped-to-be-fired-in-rupert-murdoch-blood-sacrifice-over-fox-news-election-lies-scandal/ar-AA188wAk?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=bbf9a4765b034442b47be6400f93991a&ei=43

    At least three prominent Fox News stars are set to be axed from the embattled news network to help Rupert Murdoch save face amid the ongoing $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against him and his company, RadarOnline.com has learned … Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott is also reportedly set to be “sacrificed” in a last-ditch effort for the network to avoid losing any of its millions of audience members due to the ongoing Fox-Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit scandal. Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott is also reportedly set to be “sacrificed” in a last-ditch effort for the network to avoid losing any of its millions of audience members due to the ongoing Fox-Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit scandal.

    OK firing them is a good thing. But why isn’t Tucker Carlson on this list?

    1. pgl

      Among the names on the list of those to be potentially axed from the network include popular Fox News stars such as Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro.

      Darn – my computer is doing some odd things when I cut and paste.

      1. Noneconomist

        Pirro’s absence is bad economic news. For the liquor industry. Wine sales too.

    2. Ivan

      Its a pure money calculation how much will be lost by keeping someone and how much by sacking them. Tucker has a lot of minions who would be outraged. more likely one or two of the others would be sacrificed, if they have to. My best guess is Hannity for being disloyal to Trump and the election lies. Few MAGA heads would be angry if he was “punished”.

    1. Moses Herzog

      Your mind and my mind sometimes seem to be on the same wavelength (I know, a worrisome enough cause for you to get a CAT scan on your brain very soon). I swear to the heavens above I was very close to mentioning his death on the blog earlier today. “In a Silent Way”. Oh my God, when I am drinking, that song does it to me every time, I get very emotional when drinking and listening to that song. Mostly because of the electric piano and trumpet, but Shorter also had some solo notes there in the middle there.

      The old school jazz on that era records is better than 95% of the “jazz” coming out now, if you can even call it that.

    1. pgl

      The Excel entitled Coal-fired Power Capacity by Country (MW) gives the details. China operating capacity is almost 5 times that of the US. Of course had this been done in per capita terms, China would be only slightly worse than the US.

      1. CoRev

        Mt Trashmore spews another human hate filled comment. “… had this been done in per capita terms,…” the solution clearly is lower the number of HUMANS to change the rate not the absolute amount of ….(fill in the blank here).

        Sigh, so much hate its painful to read. How much pain due to his hatred must Mt Trashmore be feeling?

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