With the release of the personal income and spending release, we have real consumption (-0.1% vs. 0.0% m/m consensus) and personal income through February; also released today is real manufacturing and trade industry sales. Below, in the graph of key business cycle series followed by the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, I add the 3rd release of 2022Q4 GDP (discussed in context of GDO and GDP+ in yesterday’s post).
Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment, NFP (dark blue), Bloomberg consensus of 3/31 (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 3rd release via FRED, S&P Global/IHS Markit (nee Macroeconomic Advisers) (3/1/2023 release), and author’s calculations.
Weekly Economic Indicators (Lewis-Mertens-Stock) for data available through March 25 (see discussion here) indicates 1.47% for y/y growth, implying 2.37% q/q for Q1. GDPNow as of today indicates Q1 growth of 2.9% q/q SAAR, while S&P Market Intelligence/formerly IHS Markit has raised its tracking estimate to 1.8% (q/q SAAR), up from 0.8%, all due to higher than ancipated consumption.
There has been some concern that labor market measurements have been off track, particularly with respect to the establishment survey series. The recent release of the QCEW data has put some of those concerns to rest (see this post). However, for completeness sake, consider the Philadelphia Fed coincident index (which is largely based on labor market data including wages and salaries), the ADP private NFP employment series (based on a completely different data set than the BLS establishment survey) and civilian employment series adjusted to the NFP concept (based on the household survey).
Figure 2: Coincident index (blue), civilian employment adjusted to NFP concept (tan), and ADP nonfarm payroll employment series (green), all in logs, 2021M11=0. Source: Philadelphia Fed, ADP via FRED, BLS, and author’s calculations.
Trump, DeSantis and other Republicans push anti-Semitic ‘Soros’ smear after Bragg indictment
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-desantis-and-other-republicans-push-anti-semitic-soros-smear-after-bragg-indictment-191729727.html
In his statement condemning the Manhattan grand jury indictment of former President Donald Trump, Florida governor and likely Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis mentioned neither the former president nor the district attorney who will prosecute the case, Alvin Bragg, by name. But he did name check George Soros, a favorite target of antisemitic conspiracy theories—twice. For some, the implication was obvious. “It’s hard to even call it a dog whistle of antisemitism,” said former assistant U.S. attorney Andrew Weissman of the Florida governor’s statement in a cable news appearance. Soros indirectly helped fund Bragg’s run for office, but he is uninvolved in the case against the former president, which is focused on an allegedly improper 2016 payment to former adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Soros and Bragg have never met. Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and other Republicans similarly made mention of Soros in denouncing the decision to indict Trump.
Abbott, RonJon, and Desantis are all Trumpian as it gets. They hate blacks, Muslims, Hispanics, and Jews equally. As Faux News might say – fair and balanced.
Anti Semitic considering both their backgrounds and financiers??? Come on pgl. Soros has been laughed at for years.
Could Trump be the modern version of Eugene Debs?
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2017/winter/debs-canton
Campaigning for President from prison!
Off topic – rents, inflation and industrial structure,
The roll of rents and owners equivalent rent in driving inflation has been discussed here (and elsewhere) pretty extensively. So extensively that I’m a little surprised Johnny hasn’t lectured us about how economists are ignoring the issue.
So anyhow, a type of quasi-collusion may have been involved in pushing up rents. High rents figure into consumers’ calculations of how much to pay to buy a home, so quasi-collusion may also have played a role in driving up home prices.
There is a rent-estimating app called YieldStar which aims to tell landlords of the highest rent they are likely to be able to charge. By itself, it represents an information asymmetry between landlords and renters – bad enough. But when the app is widely used, it has the same effect as collusion on pricing. And YieldStar is widely used.
Four Senators have asked the DoJ to look into the problem. Here’s Senator Warren’s page on the issue:
https://www.warren.senate.gov/oversight/letters/warren-lawmakers-urge-justice-department-to-review-yieldstar-warn-of-de-facto-price-setting-and-collusion-after-senate-investigation
Here’s background from ProPublica:
https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent
Which, by the way, all means that one of the biggest inflationary factors and one of the big reasons the Fed is still hiking rates is market structure. Rate hikes are not a cure for market structure.
The goal of capitalism is collusion and predation. Without extensive government control and regulation with harsh punishment for price fixing – it simply becomes organized crime and extraction. At least we have a President that is aware of this problem and in small ways trying to block it.
The latest from “Rule of Law” little Lindsey Graham:
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3928229-graham-trump-should-smash-some-windows-on-way-to-das-office/
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) joked on Twitter that former President Trump should “smash some windows, rob a few shops and punch a cop” on his way to the Manhattan district attorney’s office as a tactic to avoid prosecution.
Lindsey can always count on being the “adult” in the room.
Dominion Voting scored a legal victory over Faux News:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/dominion-wins-rare-judgment-against-fox-news-on-every-legal-issue-but-actual-malice-before-blockbuster-trial/ar-AA19ksLo?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=7b5958165b4b4013941e48ba51c37fb6&ei=13
The remarkable, 130-page ruling from Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis found that there was no need for a jury to establish that the broadcasts at issue were false. He also removed multiple other defenses from Fox’s arsenal, except for actual malice. That’s the doctrine in defamation law established by New York Times v. Sullivan and protecting news organizations from liability, by forcing litigants to show that false statements were published knowingly or with reckless disregard for the truth. “This is very very rare,” First Amendment expert Jeff Kosseff told Law&Crime. In essence, Kosseff added: “Actual malice is Fox’s only hope.”
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23736885-dominion-v-fox-summary-judgment
A New York Grand Jury has 23 members and 12 must vote to indict.
It seems that Donald Trump has finally won a popular vote!
The only remaining question is whether he will be tried as an adult.
Some NPR weekend show said this could make history. Ron DeSantis could be the first presidential candidate to be defeated by a man in jail.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-indictment-poll-surges-lead-desantis-151150006.html
Like it matters. He is done. A Zionist globalist he is.
Classic!
Desantis: “Florida will not assist in an extradition request”
US Constitution Article 4 Section 2: “A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.”
These authoritarians have no respect for the Constitution.