While America still suffers with repressed wages, increasing poverty and a vanishing middle class, Wall Street and big Multinational Corporations are having a party. Bonuses increased 15% and are back to their pre-financial crisis excesses Corporations hording cash offshore increased 11.8% in 2013 to a whopping $1.95 trillion.
Dear Economic Populist Readers. You may have noticed we have stopped publishing articles. This is because the Saint Louis Federal Reserve Fred Graph system was changed without even a warning. They removed the very fast, professional economic graphing system and API, which we used heavily, and replaced it with more of a toy.
Want to know how to create up to 5.8 million jobs in three years? End currency manipulation. So says a new study released from the Economic Policy Institute. If currency manipulation was stopped, the U.S. trade deficit would shrink by up to $500 billion in three years, annual GDP would increase up to $720 billion, the federal budget deficit would be reduced by $100 billion each year and 40% of the new jobs created would be in manufacturing.
The Federal Reserve Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization report shows a 0.6% increase in industrial production. Manufacturing alone grew by 0.8% for the month after plunging -0.9% in January due to horrific weather. This is the largest factory output gain since last August, Utilities were slightly down by -0.2% after January's polar vortex winter increase of 3.8%. Mining increased 0.3%.
The Obama 2015 Budget is finally here with the usual fanfare of a thud, dud, not gonna happen political reality. Earlier we received previews where the Obama administration finally dropped chained CPI from their proposals. The 2015 budget proposed is $3.9 trillion dollars.
Yet another Senate report, yet another bank is busted for tax evasion. The Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations has released a report on Credit-Suisse bank detailing their systemic offshore tax evasion of U.S. funds.
The Obama administration is finally abandoning their endorsement of chained CPI for next years budget. The reason is probably not good economics, but political. Election season is near and this is just one of many policies the Obama administration endorsed which raised the ire of the retired. A refresher, chained CPI is another method to adjust for cost of living increases at a reduced rate than what is currently used, CPI-W.
February 2014 Retail Sales increased 0.3% for the month. This is the first increase in three months. January was revised all the way down to -0.6% and December's drop was -0.3%. Retail sales have now increased just 1.5% from a year ago. January's decline was due to a real nose dive in auto sales, down -2.3% for the month. Online retailers continue their rise with a 6.3% increase from a year ago.
Economic theory teaches that free price and profit movements ensure that capitalism produces the greatest welfare for the greatest number. Losses indicate economic activities where costs exceed the value of production, thus investment in these activities is curtailed. Profits indicate economic activities where the value of output exceeds its cost, thus investment increases. Prices indicate the relative scarcity and value of inputs and outputs, thus serving to organize production most efficiently.
The BLS JOLTS report, or Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey shows there are 2.6 official unemployed per job opening for January 2014. Job openings were around four million yet hires and separations are almost equal, keeping the job market fairly static. Job openings have increased 85% from July 2009, while hires have only increased 24% from the same time period.
Warren Buffett (worth $58.5 billion) was not joking about winning the class war. Before the Great Recession (in 2006) Warren Buffett had said "they were winning". But in the aftermath of the Great Recession (in 2011) he said "they won".
The February current population survey unemployment report is just plain weird and it is not due to weather. First, the unemployment rate is an artificial 6.7%. The unemployment rate increased by 0.1 percentage points due to more people being officially counted as unemployed. Yet, the employment level is basically static, almost unchanged from last month, along with the labor participation rate.
Having the mightiest military, more powerful than the world has ever seen, doesn't make America exceptional. An ever expanding middle-class, equal opportunity for all, fairness in the political process and worker's rights was what had also made America exceptional since World War II—when the rising tide of capitalism had once lifted all boats. Now it just lifts the biggest yachts.
ADP's proprietary private payrolls jobs report gives us a monthly gain of just 139,000 private sector jobs for February 2014. January was revised downward significantly, from a solid 175,000 jobs initially reported to just 127 thousand for the month. Moody's blames the weather for the poor showing, which probably is part of the reason.
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