Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyOver a Million Job Openings It has been a very long time since there was such a distinct surplus of jobs in the U.S. economy—7.34 million of them. If every single person who is unemployed were to take a job, there would still be a million jobs unfilled. There are many reasons these jobs are going unfilled and add...

Industrial production fell hard in the eurozone in December, raising larger concerns about the 19 nations' effect on global economic growth. According to Reuters, industrial output declined almost 1% month-over-month (MoM), half a percent more than economists predicted. Dwindling production of capital goods was the driving force behind this decline...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyArrival of Late Reports This may have been the most colossal and serious impact of the government shutdown—at least as far as I was concerned. The many agencies that produce the reams of economic data used to assess the state of the economy were not grinding out this information for over a month. Now there will b...

The Dodge Momentum Index rebounded slightly in January to a reading of 157.7 after a step back in December. The index released by Dodge Data & Analytics measures the initial report of nonresidential building in planning and has been an indicator of nonresidential spending within a full year. January's index increased 4.7% following December's d...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyIt's All About Communication Several economists working in the private sector (as opposed to government or academe) were asked to grade the last few Fed chairmen. They turned out to be fairly tough graders. Current Chair Jerome Powell got a B-. The two prior to him (Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen) received B+ grad...

Banking executives are expecting new clientele and technology investment to flourish in the industry over the coming year after BB&T Corp. and SunTrust Banks Inc. announced plans on Feb. 7 for a $28 billion merger. Bloomberg reports the merger will create "the sixth-biggest commercial bank in the U.S. by assets."In a joint statement, the banks ...

The U.K. planned a way to simplify its customs process, should there be a "no-deal" Brexit. The policy, titled Transitional Simplified Procedures (TSP), allows full declarations to be made after the imports have already crossed the border. The TSP will also allow companies to pay the duty fees a month after importing the goods.The government recent...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyProductivity Levels Rose at End of 2018 One of the major concerns for the economy has been the level of worker productivity as the unemployment rate fell to record lows. This has been especially worrisome as employers started hiring people who would require a lot of training before being truly productive. The dat...

As economists look further into economic growth in 2019, many are anticipating a positive outcome for the retail sector, where U.S. sales are expected to rise significantly. On Feb. 5, Reuters reported the latest predictions from the National Retail Federation (NRF), finding the mixture of increased consumer confidence, growing wages and low employ...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyFed Changes Its Tune To be honest, the Fed has indicated all along that it would be governed by the numbers and by little else. This has been standard operating procedure for the Federal Reserve since its inception and is a characteristic shared with all the major central banks. Rates will be hiked when there is ...

Construction spending rose by a total of 0.8% during November 2018, an unusually positive reading for the winter months in construction, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Residential construction outlays accounted for the most of November's gain and nonresidential spending declined. Overall, spending is up 4.5% year-to-date.Residential spending ...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyShutdown and Jobs DataThis month's report on the jobs data will be affected to some degree by the government shutdown as some 800,000 employees of the federal government were not being paid and most were eligible for unemployment assistance for all or part of that period. This is a temporary issue (provided there...

Job growth in the United States saw its best of 11 months in January, according to the Department of Labor, despite the 35-day partial government shutdown that furloughed approximately 800,000 workers. On Feb.1, Reuters reported the Labor Department's findings that there was no "discernible" impact on job growth last month.Hiring spiked in January ...

The Credit Managers' Index from NACM is off to a slow start in 2019 following a decline to end the previous year. The combined index dipped to 53.4 in January from December's reading of 54.2. Many of the issues were seen in the unfavorable factors—accounts placed for collection, disputes, dollar amount beyond terms and dollar amount of customer ded...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyFed Advocates Patience The problem is that few seem to know what that really means. There are now reasons to both raise rates and to leave them where they are, or even lower them again. After several years of non-existent inflation, there are some solid signs that it has been developing. Wage rates are starting t...

Small businesses in Australia are struggling to get paid on time and the government is taking notice. On Jan. 28, The Australian reported Sen. Pauline Hanson's discussion to take legislative measures to require businesses to pay their small business suppliers in a specific timeframe, citing concerns of delayed and late invoices.The issue was brough...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyImplications of a Cooler Housing Market The housing market has not fallen into the deep freeze yet. There seems to be enough demand to keep that from happening. The market has indeed slowed; there is a lot less economic activity than was the case a year or so ago. The higher price of homes, the shaky stock market...

U.S. home prices are increasing, however, at a slower pace than the month prior. According to the latest S&P CoreLogic Case Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, prices were up 5.2% annually in November compared to 5.3% in October. The 10-city and 20-city composite indices were also down year-over-year in November compared to the previous...

The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, ended Jan. 25 with global economic leaders doubtful for the future. Compared to the 2018 annual forum, morale is far lower this year. At the beginning of the conferences, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its global growth for 2019, setting the tone for the rest of the conferenc...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyThe Jobless Dilemma It has been apparent for years that the shortage of qualified labor has inhibited the U.S. economy and reduced productivity. It has been a subject that gets beaten half to death by pundits from the right and left. Today, there was an interesting opportunity to hear a couple of perspectives. Th...