Average Hourly Earnings Trends

I have written many blog posts concerning the worrisome trends in income and earnings. Along these lines, one of the measures showing disconcerting trends is that of hourly earnings. While the concept of hourly earnings can be defined and measured in a variety of ways, below are a few charts that I believe broadly illustrate problematic …

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Recession Measures – Updated

This post is the latest update to a series of blog posts seen on the CalculatedRisk.com blog.  The original blog post of April 12, 2010, is titled “Recession Measures.” In it, Bill discussed key measures that the NBER uses to determine recoveries, and posted four charts. Here are those charts, updated in his April 1, 2013 post titled “Update: …

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April 2 Gallup Poll Results On Economic Confidence – Notable Excerpts

On April 2, Gallup released the poll results titled “U.S. Economic Confidence Slips in March.”  The subtitle is “Democrats’ economic confidence declines, while Republicans’ improves.” Three of the most notable excerpts: U.S. economic confidence fell slightly to -16 in March, from -13 in February, and is at its lowest level since December. Monthly economic confidence was …

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Markets During Periods Of Federal Reserve Intervention – March 26, 2013 Update

In the August 9, 2011 post (“QE3 – Various Thoughts“) I posted a chart that depicted the movements of the S&P500, 10-Year Treasury Yield and the Fed Funds rate spanning the periods of various Federal Reserve interventions since 2007. For reference purposes, here is an updated chart from Doug Short’s blog post of March 26 …

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Durable Goods New Orders – Long-Term Charts Through February 2013

Many people place emphasis on Durable Goods New Orders as a prominent economic indicator and/or leading economic indicator. For reference, below are charts depicting this measure. First, from the St. Louis Fed site (FRED), a chart through February, last updated on March 26.  This value is 232,108 ($ Millions) : (click on charts to enlarge …

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Median Household Income Chart

I have written many blog posts concerning the worrisome trends in income and earnings. Doug Short, in his March 25 blog post, titled “Real Median Household Incomes:  Down $590 in February” produced the chart below.  It is based upon data from Sentier Research, and it shows both nominal and real median household incomes since 2000, as depicted. …

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Broad-Based Indicators Of Economic Activity

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) and the Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti Business Conditions Index (ADS Index) are two broad-based economic indicators that I regularly feature in this site. The current levels of each are notable, as they are vacillating from a short-term perspective and their long-term trends continue to sink. Doug Short, in his blog post …

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Current Economic Situation

With regard to our current economic situation,  my thoughts can best be described/summarized by the posts found under the 22 “Building Financial Danger” posts. My thoughts concerning our ongoing economic situation – with future implications – can be seen on the page titled “A Special Note On Our Economic Situation,” which has been found near …

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Disturbing Charts (Update 10)

I find the following charts to be disturbing.   These charts would be disturbing at any point in the economic cycle; that they (on average) depict such a tenuous situation now – 44 months after the official (as per the 9-20-10 NBER announcement) June 2009 end of the recession – is especially notable. These charts raise …

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