Bad Weather Ahead?

Posted on 10 June 2015 by Erik Hare | 4 Comments

The forecast calls for the cold and stormy June to resume here in the middle of this vast continent after a brief heat wave. We’ve come to rely on weather forecasters to at least give us a guess as to what it will be like as the lazy days demand outdoor fun. Tomorrow night, for example, they tell us there is a 25% chance of rain.

But such forecasts are usually limited to the weather. Why not stocks?

The short answer is that when there’s a lot of money riding on something a busted forecast could be cause for a lawsuit. No one wants to stick their neck out too far beyond the herd because anything unprecedented is a risk not worth taking. But we’re here among friends, right? Barataria makes forecasts from time to time and this month is a good one for it. The reason is that we can see a storm brewing as stocks have gotten pretty far ahead of the “recovery” so far.

Continue reading →

Not Hiring, but not Firing

Posted on 5 June 2015 by Erik Hare | 18 Comments

Where are the jobs? Job creation has been the hot economic topic since the big downturn in 2008. The sooner we have full employment the sooner demand for goods and services will turn around and there will be a net upward pressure on wages. But in 2015 the rate of increase in jobs has slowed somewhat, barely hitting 200k net every month from a solid run of 220k the year before. What happened?

The data is even more confounding when you look at the net good news on jobs – that initial claims for unemployment per week are at an all-time low as a percent of total jobs. We’re not creating jobs as fast as we should, but we also aren’t losing them. Along with a large backlog of unfilled job postings there is substantial evidence that something is wrong. Is it a skills gap? Or something else?

Continue reading →

A Connected Approach

Posted on 3 June 2015 by Erik Hare | 4 Comments

One of the recurring themes of Barataria is that nearly everything in our life can be evaluated based on how it is connected. This works for analyzing political and economic power, but it also charts the course of ideas and products. If our political system isn’t working properly, Barataria would argue that it isn’t connected properly to the society it purports to govern or to new ideas that will help it to change.

I’ve expounded on the subject in many different ways, sometimes without using the same words, as a way of thinking this out in public. Many of you have responded with insightful comments and a few questions on the side – what is that guy going on about? I’d like to nail this down into a simple, direct statement. This is an old work, about five years old, but it is something I want to revist to help make sense of our changing world.

Continue reading →

GDP Down? Take It With a Little Seasoning

Posted on 1 June 2015 by Erik Hare | 11 Comments

The first revision for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the first quarter (1Q15) came out negative. The economy is contracting! Is it time to panic? The White House attributed the slowdown to weak exports, which are quite well known to be a problem. But is that all?

As we have commented on at length before, the GDP numbers are full of fudge, so it may be hard to know just what to make of them. A cynic would say, and probably does say, that they the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) is making the numbers up as they go to make everyone happy.

Perhaps you are a bit too diabetic to handle all the fudge, either, but this problem is a bit more savory than sweet. It’s all about the seasoning – or, rather, the “seasonal adjustment”.

Continue reading →