A reminder that it’s still possible to save tens of thousands of lives, with a return to competence and science in the waning days of the Trump administration (it goes without saying management would improve immeasurably in the Biden-Harris administration). Covid-19 hospitalizations are soaring. Seven day rolling average of deaths is at 970, showing a rapid ascent (it’s rising 19% per week). How long can employment continue to grow as the pandemic again surges?
Macroeconomic Management in the New Administration
today, as I was writing a short comment on the dollar’s prospects, I realized how much my views were informed by who was likely to be managing the macroeconomy. Just to make this point concrete, consider the economic team under Trump, as compared to under Obama as the latter confronted the Great Recession:
Business Cycle Indicators, November 6
Meanwhile, back in the real economy, the employment decelerates. Here’s the current outlook, using some key indicators noted by the NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee (BCDC).
Employment in October: Further Deceleration
The employment release confirms a deceleration in employment, presaging deceleration in the other macro indicators. Government employment is down, and not solely because of the winding-down of the decennial Census. Rather, state and local government employment is declining, and is now 6.8% below NBER peak level.
Staging Artemisia – Art, Opera and Theatre at the National Gallery (London)
Tomorrow 11am Eastern, noon Central, and 6pm GMT, from the National Gallery of Art in London (online, registration req’d), an event with Artemisia‘s composer Laura Schwendinger, librettist Ginger Strand, and Billy Barrett and Ellice Stevens, of Breach:
The Recovery: Reverse Radical or W?
IHS-Markit released estimates for monthly GDP a couple days ago. Here’s the contours of the recovery so far — and it’s not a “V”.
Employment Growth Continues to Decelerate: the ADP Report
ADP reports private nonfarm payroll employment today, +365K, below +650K consensus…:
Stop the Uncertainty!
The economic policy uncertainty, that is (With apologies to Susan Powter). Regardless of where you are on the econo-political spectrum, you should want economic policy uncertainty to be reduced. Remember all those conservative voices in the post-Global Financial Crisis saying policy uncertainty was slowing the economic recovery? Well, today is an opportunity to return considered, coherent, economic policymaking and trade negotiations.
Trends in Covid-19 New Cases, Current Hospitalizations, and Deaths
It seems to me unlikely, looking at correlations and lags, that we are indeed “rounding the corner” on the pandemic.
Of Cumulatives and Count Biases
Reader Bruce Hall declares:
When adjusting for population, the number of new infections in Europe has now overtaken those in the United States, with Europe reporting 231 new Covid-19 cases per 1 million people, based on a seven-day average, compared with 177 new Covid-19 cases per 1 million people in the U.S. Overall, Europe, which includes 27 European Union countries and the U.K., is seeing nearly 120,000 new cases per day, Johns Hopkins data shows. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/20/covid-is-accelerating-across-the-globe-as-us-and-europe-head-into-flu-season.html