Janet highlights - " Too many Americans remain unemployed, inflation remains below our longer-run objective, and the work of making the financial system more robust has not yet been completed" "...the recovery in the labor market is far from complete. The unemployment...
While the establishment data confirms some Q1 softness in labor market conditions, the household survey tells a very different story. From U-3 to U-6, the numbers were very "frisky", with an amazing 500k+ increase in the workforce, and 600k+ increase in employment....
The first 23 days of 2014 were about as boring as any three-week period in recent memory. By the close of business on Thursday the 23rd of January, the year-to-date moves for most of the active developed asset markets were minuscule: Spoos -1% Q's +1% EURUSD unch...
The December payroll report does NOT suggest that labor market momentum is increasing. The modest 78k increase in payrolls, plus the 34k in positive revisions barely gets us half of what was expected. But the most concerning part of the report comes from the household...
Catchy title huh? But I'm sorry to disappoint all the haters out there, I will not be referring to a crash in risk assets. I will leave that exercise in futility for the doomsayers and goldbugs who have been calling for Armegeddon since 900 on the spoo! Instead I'm...
We just saw one of the "easiest" Fed removals of accommodation in history. And as mentioned previously, this meeting was one of the closest calls in recent memory. Here is what I wrote on Dec 10th in a commentary entitled "Smaller or Later Redux" - "As for the market...
The news of Stan Fischer's appointment to the Federal Reserve Board as vice chairman for monetary affairs did not seem to generate any market cheer last week. After the announcement many folks quickly scanned the recent press to obtain a better handle on his views....
The employment data last week was certainly strong enough for the Fed to move ahead with a taper at the upcoming FOMC meeting. A 7% unemployment rate with a RISING participation rate and a 200K handle on payrolls is about as good as we could have wished for. And the...
"The economy cannot on its own generate enough steam to provide our full potential of growth" - Alvin Hansen, "The Stagnation Thesis" (1954) The first economist to use the term "secular stagnation" was Harvard Professor Alvin Hansen in his 1938 work entitled "Full...
"The economy cannot on its own generate enough steam to provide our full potential of growth" - Alvin Hansen, "The Stagnation Thesis" (1954) The first economist to use the term "secular stagnation" was Harvard Professor Alvin Hansen in his 1938 work entitled "Full Recovery or Stagnation?". This concept seems to have found a new lease […]
