The labor market looks stronger than GDP.
Figure 1: Wisconsin Nonfarm Payroll Employment (dark blue), Civilian Employment (tan), real wages and salaries, deflated by national chained CPI (tan), GDP (red), coincident index (green), all in logs 2021M11=0. Source: BLS, BEA, Philadelphia Fed, and author’s calculations
Addendum, 12/31/2023:
Several questions arise from this survey. First, why is there such a divergence in measured conditions? One thing to understand is that typically labor market indicators are measured with greater accuracy and timeliness than other indicators. In particular, nonfarm payroll employment is more reliable, even more so at the state level than at the national level. That being said, as tax and unemployment insurance information comes in, one can get a better fix on NFP. The Philadelphia Fed does this in its early benchmark (latest release December 14). Using this series increases the gap. Here’re the official and early benchmark series plotted.
Figure 2: Wisconsin Nonfarm Payroll Employment (dark blue), and Philadelphia Fed early benchmark NFP (pink). Source: BLS, Philadelphia Fed.
For October, official NFP is 0.4 ppts below early benchmark.
The divergence might arise because of greater mismeasurement of GDP. There are substantial revisions over time. Below is Wisconsin GDP:
Figure 3: Wisconsin GDP, vintage 11/14/2018 (black), vintage 6/25/2021 (blue), vintage 10/01/2021 (green), 6/30/2023 (red), mn Ch.2023$, SAAR. NBER defined recession dates shaded gray. Source: BEA via ALFRED, NBER.
It may be that GDP will be revised over time, thereby making the series more coherent.
Addendum, 1/2/2024:
The Baumeister/Leiva-Leon/Sims WECI indicates Wisconsin growth is accelerating relative to trend, in contrast to the US overall.
Figure 4: Weekly Economic Conditions Index for US (green), for Wisconsin (red), in %. Source: WECI.
And what will Larry Summers say about this I wonder?? I presume in his Jeffrey Epstein loving cranium it means certain catastrophe.
Filled most of the car tank today at $2.419 a gallon. If you look at the five year graph, it’s very hard to connect price increases to Biden policies. Unless you want to label intelligent Covid-19 health policy “inflationary”. Like, people going to jobs instead of gasping for air in a hospital ER and stuff. I guess MAGA miss those days of sitting at home with no private paycheck, and Karen can’t yell at the manager anymore because the manager wouldn’t allow her to spread a disease with a high death rate. Gone are the halcyon days of MAGA.
Shades of Doris Kearns Goodwin. The outright theft of others’ words and writings, denial of reality, and zero punishment or reason for her to not continue stealing others’ writing, when she receives no deterrent for lies and plagiarism:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/us/harvard-claudine-gay-plagiarism-antisemitism-israel-palestine-protests.html
If an undergrad student at any 4-year college did the same thing, they’d be at minimum suspended for a term, or, much more likely, permanently expelled. An administrative crony with woke bona fides~~”keep up the good work”.
Politico’s list of the worst predictions for 2023 is out:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/29/2023-worst-political-predictions-00132568
Topping the list is former Russian president Medvedev’s predictions that France and Germany would go to war, the U.S. would dissolve in a civil war, with Elon Musk chosen as president of a rump GOP nation.
Others include that Biden would face a major primary opponent (said Karl Rove), that Trump would not be indicted in New York (Larry Kudlow), that the U.S. would enter recession (Jamie Dimon, et al), Barbie would flop because it’s “woke” (Ben Shapiro), Mike Pence would outlast Nickie Haley (Ross Douthat) and Sam Bankman-Fried would not be indicted because he’s a donor to Democrats (Elon Musk). Plenty more. A reminder that:
It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
Yogi Bera, Casey Stengel, Neils Bohr
Could it be some Republicans actually have a heart?? I am not exactly pro-LGBTQ. But it is hard to deny the fact that when legislation such as this is passed, the suicide rate of this group rises. It affects families in a deep way. DeWine educated himself, then made the correct choice.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ohio-gov-mike-dewine-vetoes-bill-banning-gender-affirming-care-for-transgender-minors/
Topping the list of bad predictions:
1) “Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, said in an interview to ABC News that Ukraine is planning a major offensive for spring, and the fiercest fighting is expected in March.
“This is [when we will see more – ed.] liberation of territories and dealing the final defeats to the Russian Federation.”
https://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-planning-major-offensive-spring-131247455.html
2) David Petraeus, the American General and former CIA Director, is convinced that the Ukrainian counter-offensive will be very impressive, and that the Ukrainian defence forces will “achieve combined arms effects”. It was indeed very impressive…but for the wrong reasons.,,kind of like his notorious surge in Iraq. https://news.yahoo.com/ukraines-counteroffensive-very-impressive-us-220315784.html
The good news is that much of the mainstream media has finally returned to some semblance of realistic reporting of events in Ukraine. (imagine that–reality…what a concept!) The illusion propagated by the war’s cheerleaders that Ukraine is winning has finally been deep sixed. Now it’s time to recognize the pointlessness and futility of the whole proxy war.
Only a total pervert (which you are in spades) would celebrate the continuation of Putin’s war crimes like you do. BTW the fighting has been fierce but I guess not enough Ukrainian children were killed to suit your sick pleasures.
pgl just hates it when reality is explained to him…he prefers to parrot discredited propaganda that Ukraine was winning. He probably believes that the NY Jets are going to win the Superbowl, too!
JohnH: You (1) didn’t believe Russian was going to expand its invasion, (2) you didn’t believe the summer 2022 counteroffensive was going to be successful (you mocked it as a stealth offensive), (3) you didn’t think I should put dashed lines in my graphs at 2022M02, saying it was a nonevent, (4) you you didn’t think the US published median wage data on a timely, (5) thought that the US did not publish depreciation data for defense expenditures (among other things).
A mentally retarded dork mansplains something? Dude – you are pathetic and everyone here knows it.
BTW – I hate the Jets. No – the Ravens will win the super bowl dumbass.
“Topping the list of bad predictions” says the Kremlin’s favorit troll. But it’s only his list, and he’s nobody. On Politico’s list, a noted, is a prediction o the dissolution of western democracy from a highly-0laced Russian official. Johnny needs to dstract us from Politico’s list, so he pretends therbi another one. Same old lyin’ Johnny.
Exactly. JohnH has a long history of posting idiocies and bad predictions – sometimes with links that turns out to not say, or even say the opposite of the postulates they are supposed to support. At some point people lose so much credibility that their postulates are not even worth reading.
Once again little Jonny boy forgot to READ the entirety of his own link. Last paragraph in a really short discussion:
On 2 January, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, reported that during 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine killed over 100,000 Russian invaders, liberated 40% of the territories occupied during the full-scale invasion, and destroyed almost 42,000 Russian explosive devices.
Oh I’m sorry – I did not mean to spoil Jonny boy’s New Years celebration with the news that Russia did not take over all of Ukraine like Putin said they would. Boy little Jonny boy – he does not get to toast the deaths of millions of innocent Ukrainians as he sips on his $9 a bottle crap champagne. Boo hoo!
“U.S. President Barack Obama said that Ukraine “is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what” the United States does…
Obama said that Ukraine was clearly a core interest for Russia but suggested that it may not be one for the United States.
Ukraine is “an example of where we have to be very clear about what our core interests are and what we are willing to go to war for,” Obama said.
He rejected the notion that “the decision making of Russia or China” could somehow be influenced by “talking tough or engaging in some military action” in such situations. Such an idea “is contrary to all the evidence we have seen over the last 50 years,” Obama said.”
https://www.rferl.org/a/obama-ukraine-vulnerable-russian-military-domination/27603145.html
Obama was right. But instead respecting the evidence of the past 50 years, Biden chose to get involved in yet another pointless and futile war and sabotaged several negotiations for peace. Obama was also spot on when he said: “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f*** things up,”
Most children learn by the age of five not to pick a fight they can’t finish…but not US leaders. Driven by megalomania they insist on being king of the mountain, despite being embarrassed repeatedly (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.) And the neocons and their fellow travelers here ignore reality and cheer them on. It would be hilarious to watch, if only the consequences of their delusions were not so tragic.
Gee Jonny – so much babbling that had NOTHING to do with my comment there. Yea Jonny boy floats from one topic to another to distract everyone from the fact that all of his previous comments were beyond stupid. Dude – find another blog where people do not know yet what a pathetically stupid liar you really are.
I read your link little Jonny boy. Did you? As in
“And the notion that somehow Russia is in a stronger position now, in Syria or in Ukraine, than they were before they invaded Ukraine or before he had to deploy military forces to Syria is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of power in foreign affairs or in the world generally,” he said. “Real power means you can get what you want without having to exert violence.
If you are trying to tell us that Obama would have just sit by idly as Putin tried to take over all of Ukraine then you are indeed the most pathetic little liar EVER. This discussion does not say that and unless your IQ is in the single digits you know that. Oh wait – your IQ is in the single digits. Never mind.
Memo to the adults in the room – whenever Jonny boy cherry picks out of context something he links to – read the whole thing. Jonny boy lied about this one just like Jonny boy lies about everything.
And your solution to the problem of Ukraine being invaded by Russia is…
Please do respond. You complain endlessly about the “pointlessness and futility…” of the war, but Putin doesn’t seem to think it’s pointless (as he initiated it) or futile (as he continues it.) Why do you think the two of you disagree? What would you say to him to try to convince him to end it, other than chanting “pointless and futile” at him?
The solution was tried and sabotaged repeatedly but the US–but Ithaqua thinks it’s a brilliant strategy to continue to beat his head against a wall, expecting the wall to disintegrate. Most would call that insanity.
Johnny’s solution i for Ukraine to surrender territory to Russia. He claims this solution has been sabotaged by thnU.S., but has never explained how that’s possible.
How has the U.S. compelled Ukraine to fight against Ukraine’s wishes? I’ve asked that repeatedly. Johnny has never answered. He just digs up another clqim that it happened, without explaining how.
See Menzie’s list of Johnny’s absurdities – a partial list, it should be noted – as context for Johnny’s claim that Ukraine wantento surrender, but was prevented from doing so.
C’mon, Johnny an tell us HOW the U.S. prevented Ukraine from surrendering to Russia. How could the U.S. force Ukrainian troops onto the battlefield?
Hey a$$hole – for the millionth damn time. Your boy Putin started this war. Not Biden. Not Ukraine. Your team of war criminals.
No worries for JohnH. No reason for a congenital liar to beat his head against a wall. Just as easy to lie and never worry. Make up enough lies then deny any connection, hoping your audience includes those who can’t remember today’s lies from those he told yesterday, last week, last month, last year,
He knows his act and charade—anti-war patriot—has worn thin, but he doesn’t care. Same old lies can be retold, no head banging necessary. Just rinse and repeat. And maybe today, there’ll be a new convert who doesn’t know JohnH has no problem with the Russian invasion or with Russian atrocities in Ukraine.
That wasteful war? Not for JohnH.
Same lies. Same liar. All is well in JohnLand.
What problem does the tiff going on in rump Ukraine pose to me a retired U.S. citizen who has no oar invested in Lockheed or other purveyors of perpetual war profit?
Russia already had one assassination attempt at putin. More internal attempts will be made. Note how quickly putin suppressed the wagner insurrection? Their march on moscow almost succeeded. Explain wagner johnny.
There will be a recession in 2023
PREDICTED BY: A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE …
Ah but only Princeton Steve confidently told us we had a recession in 2022!
“Trump would not be indicted in New York (Larry Kudlow)”
Kudlow does not do predictions. Kudlow babbles whatever his political masters ask him to babble. After all this lying fool told us that after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, oil prices would fall to $12 a barrel as Iraq would produce 12 million barrels of oil per day. How did that prediction pan out?
I think it was either Walgreens or CVS that got busted for this SAME lie at an earnings call inside the last 5 years:
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/19/target-store-closures-theft-and-crime-higher-nearby.html
Wal Mart closed some stores inside the last year, giving the same excuse. Wonder if they won’t be busted for the same deceptive bullsh*t.
I work for Walmart, doing inventory control and forecasting, and I can tell you right now that a) every year, a small number of stores close because they just don’t do well, not much of a surprise given that we have only a few standard store layouts and aren’t as flexible in this regard as we are trying to be, and b) a very small number of stores were indeed targeted by what appears to be very well organized crime. I can’t talk about it much beyond that, but let’s just say it was spectacularly obvious, far, far beyond the bounds of “well, maybe…”
Menzie – thanks for posting. I know you mostly post data/facts with very little punditry/analysis. But I wonder what is going on here – from my review of Wisconsin demographics – I see WI population as aging and plateauing. IMO – WI needs more international immigration to help grow its economy. (For example: “We’re going to have about 200 temporary employees in Waupaca from South America and south Texas,” Nikolai said. He noted that some of the employees are coming through staffing services on amnesty visas from Venezuela. Nikolai described his own personal frustration with the government over its immigration policies. “I support secure borders, but we need a bipartisan solution and a pathway to legal immigration,” he said. https://waupacanow.com/2022/03/01/cultivating-a-workforce/ )
(Menzie – best wishes for new year – maybe with more competitive legislative seats WI can get back to the pre-Walker/Tea Party/MAGA days – when the WIGOP would actually try and do something/responsible governance for their constituents.)
That is one of the right wings big problems. Whipping up xenophobia has been a political winner among low information voters. However they really need those immigrants to fill low skill jobs at low wages. They also need them to avoid the problems of falling population counts. That is why they come up with idiotic “solutions” like building a wall. The low information voters will be conned into thinking it “doing something” – yet reality is that its just giving more business to Mexican drone taxies and hack saw sellers.
Be curious to know if Menzie mostly agrees or mostly disagrees with the Josh Zumbrun column in Saturday’s WSJ:
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/data-quality-is-getting-worse-when-we-might-need-the-numbers-most-749bd63d
I still get phone calls on the hard line that are surveys, and then I hang up. So they are still using phones for political polling data, that much is certain, even if it has become a smaller amount. They are not catching rural voters data very well, which is why guys like donald trump always do a little better than we think they will. He appeals to low educated groups. But Zumbrun is mostly talking economic data, not political data, and you can’t tell if someone votes red or blue by how long they keep their lights on at night time.
Hope for the best, expect the worst:
https://www.si.com/fannation/college/cfb-hq/ncaa-football-picks/lsu-vs-wisconsin-2024-reliaquest-bowl-game-prediction-pick
Big 10 running games don’t translate well in Florida weather.
China’s NBS factory PMI fell to 49.0 in December. That’s the 8th month below 50 (neutral) in the past 9 months:
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/business-confidence
If you poke the 5yr button you’ll see that China has been struggling to grow since the pandemic began.
Back in November, the private Caixin PMI came in at 50.7, and has been above 50 in 6 of the past 9 months:
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/manufacturing-pmi
I don’t have an explanation for the difference in performance, though it may be worth noting that the NBS index covers mostly large, state-run enterprises while the Caixin covers private industrial firms. Don’t know when the December Caixin is due, but I’m curious to see what it says.
I was waiting on Menzie’s bad contributors roundup. Maybe since usual suspects have been quiet lately Menzie decided to let the hell hounds off for this year?? I do kinda enjoy it, but if we’re being “kinder/gentler” here I’m cool with that also. About a week from now I plan on putting a link to some photos up here on Menzie’s blog,, don’t let me forget people
Menzie, I noticed IHME has stopped modeling Covid-19 awhile back. Who would you be watching for info on that now?? Is it just the CDC for American cases or where do we watch now?? I got a high risk person in the household and I am starting to worry a little bit about it.
My preferred site for granular Covid data is NYT. You can get county level information. But if the county is small, then there is a lot of noice (then look at state levels or bigger adjacent counties).
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/us/covid-cases.html
Unfortunately it is behind a paywall.
As always with aerosol transmitted respiratory virus the preventive steps are fairly simple but not 100 % effective:
1. Get vaccinations up to date.
2. Reduce time spend in high risk environments (crowded indoor spaces)
3. Use effective (N95) masks when in high risk environments
4. Avoid exposure to symptomatic individuals.
I got one data point saying that in my state the number of Covid cases is rising more dramatically than the national rate of increase, but I don’t know how reliable the info is. Another thing say hospitalizations have risen 18% in the last 2 weeks, but I can’t tell if they are saying for my state or nationally:
covidactnow.org
Here are the graphs for Wisconsin from Carnegie Mellon, which seems to be one of a very few still remaining active. I mean I hate to get all paranoid, but if you’re like me and you know some high risk people, I’m thinking we should start watching these numbers again.
https://delphi.cmu.edu/covidcast/?region=WI
Current deaths from Covid are about 1500/week. That is an annual rate of 75K or about what a bad flue strain will do. It was down to 500/week (25K annual rate) this summer, so it clearly is something to keep an eye on.
Smart people will get their annual flue shot and Covid boosters whenever they come out with new ones. Dumb people will die. The most current Covid booster has a dismal uptake of 14% of the US population. A lot of dumb people (~60K) will die this year. But that may not be enough to avoid that Trump gets elected. Even more dumb people will survive a severe infection and suffer enough brain “nursing cell” destruction that their brain size will have shrunk measurably – and been harmed functionally. So don’t get your hopes up too soon Biden.
Moses, thanks for the link.
I had a look at Indiana, Tennessee, New York, California and Michigan. Only California isn’t worse that the national average. Tennessee is always worse, but the northern tier may be suffering for seasonal reasons.
Detroit, Gary, and Lansing are all hot spots. I checked Georgia, too, and it’s below the national average (seasonal pattern, I think), but there’s a hot spot in Atlanta. That pattern suggests the black population is being hit particularly hard.
Trump’s Pardoning of a Loan Shark Derailed a Federal Investigation: Report
The former president undermined negotiations between Jonathan Braun and prosecutors who hoped Braun would testify against other predatory lenders in exchange for his release
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-pardon-loan-shark-jonathan-braun-1234897002/
VERY EARLY IN the morning on Donald Trump‘s last day in office, the president announced he was pardoning Jonathan Braun, a loan shark who had been convicted of running a vast marijuana ring. Braun, who at the time was serving a 10-year sentence, was pardoned along with 142 others, including rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black.
Trump’s move undermined a years-long federal investigation, The New York Times reported Sunday. The paper also uncovered ties between Braun and the family of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Federal prosecutors were in the midst of negotiations hoping to secure Braun’s cooperation in a Justice Department investigation into predatory lenders in the merchant cash advance industry when Trump announced his clemency. Investigators felt that an industry insider like Braun could reveal information about predatory lending agreements, but after he was released from incarceration, prosecutors no longer had leverage they could use to compel Braun to talk.
Between 2011 and 2020, while awaiting sentencing in the marijuana case, Braun offered predatory loans to small businesses. Borrowers who took out loans from Braun say in court documents that he threatened them and their families for non-payment. During the nine years he was waiting to be sentenced, Braun was accused of making violent threats to eight people who had borrowed money from him, and a lawsuit claimed Braun had pushed a man off a deck at a Staten Island home in 2018.
A real estate developer who borrowed from Braun said in a court document that Braun threatened him, saying, “I will take your daughters from you.”
According to an affidavit, Braun allegedly told another borrower, “Be thankful you’re not in New York, because your family would find you floating in the Hudson.”
Only months following his release from prison, Braun was banned from making or collecting business loans by the state of New York. In a statement following the ban, New York Attorney General Letitia James claimed that Braun and others had been “harming small businesses through high-interest loans and undisclosed fees.” In a lawsuit, James alleged that “merchant cash advances, which are a form of short-term, high-interest funding for small businesses” offered by Braun and others “were in fact illegal, high-interest loans with astronomical and illegal rates.”
The court ordered Braun’s company — Richmond Capital Group, LLC — as well as two other companies — Ram Capital Funding, LLC, and Viceroy Capital Funding Inc. — to cancel debt owed by thousands of small businesses across the country as well as repay interest and overage charges, amounting to tens of millions of dollars.
The Times also raised questions about Braun’s connections to the Kushners. An investigation by the paper found that Braun was a member of the inaugural class of the Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston, N.J., which received a large amount of funding from the Kushner family.
A merchant cash advance dealer who wished to remain anonymous told The Times that a cousin who was running Braun’s business while he was in jail told him that Braun’s father, Jacob Braun, had reached out to Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, regarding the family’s hopes that Trump would pardon Braun. The cousin, Isaac Wolf, later claimed that the Kushners had helped secure Braun’s release, the merchant cash advance dealer said.
Jacob Braun also regularly called Trump ally Alan Dershowitz to plead for Braun’s release. “Every single Friday by 3 o’clock in the afternoon: ‘Hi this is Jacob Braun, I’m so upset my son is still in prison, what can you do? It’s unfair, he’s a good boy,’” Dershowitz told the paper.
Federal investigators were not made aware of the pardon until the morning it was announced and, according to The Times, they were furious that Trump had sabotaged a possible deal with Braun over predatory lending practices.
An Amazon insider – Justin Garrison – gives us a peek at Amazon’s downsizing effort, with details that have implications for future share value, performance and treatment of customers:
https://justingarrison.com/blog/2023-12-30-amazons-silent-sacking/
Garrison apparently earns between $400,000 and $800,000 per year, and is now faced with working conditions similar to people who are paid far less; time to find a nicer situation. His big concern is that severance may not be available for a voluntary quit. Too bad for him, but still interesting. He claims similar things are happening at other “good places to work” for people at his level.
There is, of course, a Covid angle to this. Amazon hired a huge number of people to take advantage of the goods boom. That boom has run its course; Amazon cut employment for the first time in 2022.
More recent cuts at the high end are certainly motivated by a need to reduce costs, but also, says Garrison, by poor choices about internet services and AI at Amazon. Inducing dissatisfaction among high-end tech staff seems a particularly bad response to falling behind in tech.
“Enshittification” may also be playing a role – eventually you have pissed off enough of the sheep you are milking that they refuse to use.
https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/
The standard business plan for all of them are the same – and so is the eventual downsizing.
Kevin Drum brings us to an important tweet on climate change:
https://jabberwocking.com/we-just-keep-setting-new-climate-records/
https://twitter.com/Climatologist49/status/1741853667270205936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1741853667270205936%7Ctwgr%5E7a3ccbb6ff89bf5342aaa4f2884eeadadb48790d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fjabberwocking.com%2Fwe-just-keep-setting-new-climate-records%2F
December 2023 was the warmest December on record for the Contiguous U.S. by a wide margin using Prism Climate Group data. It was 0.67°F (0.37°C) warmer than December 2021.
The adults here likely already knew this. But pay attention to all the CoRev wannabees replying trash to this Tweet or making stupid comments over at Kevin’s place. Trolls to the left of you, trolls to the right of you, trolls all around.