America’s MSM lies a lot! Two recent examples of big lies:
To understand the real reasons behind this phenomenon, we must go all the way back to the founding days …
A summary of today’s April 2022 employment report:
Consumer Credit increased at a seasonally adjusted rate of 9.7% month-over-month in 1Q2022.
Here are the top 10 boys and girls names for 2021 according to U.S. Social Security:
| Boys | Girls |
|---|---|
| 1. Liam | 1. Olivia |
| 2. Noah | 2. Emma |
| 3. Oliver | 3. Charlotte |
| 4. Elijah | 4. Amelia |
| 5. James | 5. Ava |
| 6. William | 6. Sophia |
| 7. Benjamin | 7. Isabella |
| 8. Lucas | 8. Mia |
| 9. Henry | 9. Evelyn |
| 10. Theodore | 10. Harper |
As usual, we have included below the headlines and news summaries moving the markets today including:
Some say today’s market’s decline is due to fear of a 75 basis-point hike at the Fed’s June meeting.
Employers increased job cuts by 14% in April 2022 compared to March – although job cuts to date for the year are down 52% from the same period last year.
First quarter 2022 non-farm business labor productivity declined 0.6% year-over-year whilst unit labor costs increased 7.2% YoY. Note that productivity is measured using monetary methods and is not adjusted for inflation. Having said this, I believe labor productivity likely improved – but not nearly as much as labor costs grew.
Weekly unemployment claims are modestly growing – but still well below levels seen in the last year.
As usual, we have included below the headlines and news summaries moving the markets today including:
The BEA announced today that March 2022 imports grew month-to-month 10.3%, exports grew 5.6% – and the resulting trade deficit grew 22.3%
As expected, the Federal Reserve raised the federal funds rate by 1/2 percent with the target range now 3/4% to 1%. And their statement stated:
…and anticipates that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate. In addition, the Committee decided to begin reducing its holdings of Treasury securities and agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities on June 1, as described in the Plans for Reducing the Size of the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet that were issued in conjunction with this statement.
In addition, the Federal Reserve issued a plan for reducing the size of their balance sheet.
As usual, we have included below the headlines and news summaries moving the markets today including:
In this post, I will end my series on Karl Marx (i.e., my last three posts) with a resounding conclusion: Karl Marx has proven correct, mostly! One primary reason: China is back, offering a significant model of [modest] prosperity, without colonialism. China is essentially Marxist.
According to Corelogic, home price growth jumped to over 20% in March, marking the 14th straight month of double-digit price gains. However, annual gains are projected to slow to around 6% by next March, as rising mortgage rates and higher home prices hamper affordability for some home shoppers.
The BLS March 2022 Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLTS) shows job openings and hires were little changed at 11.5 million and 6.7 million respectively.
As usual, we have included below the headlines and news summaries moving the markets today including:
The headlines for March 2022 construction spending say it slightly improved relative to last month. Unfortunately, there is significant inflation in the sector – and the real facts show year-over-year growth has contracted over 5% (red line on graph below).
As usual, we have included below the headlines and news summaries moving the markets today including:
At the end of every month, NOAA updates their Early Outlook for the following month which in this case is May. They also issue a drought outlook for the following month. We are reporting on that tonight. The updated Outlook is quite different from the Early Outlook which NOAA now calls the Mid-Month Outlook. It is overall less warm and less dry than the Mid-Month Outlook.
We provide partial-month outlooks for the first 27 days of May which allows us to validate if the Monthly Outlook is consistent with the partial month forecasts and it is. We also provide enough information for readers to understand any changes from the Mid-Month Outlook and we try to figure out why these changes were made. Most of the changes are explained in the NOAA discussion which is included in the article. The NOAA discussion describes the changes but does not provide a lot of insight into the reasons for the changes other than a change in the wave pattern that they describe as more troughing in the western Northern Tier. The partial-month forecasts that we have provided show how NOAA thinks this will play out as the weather pattern changes during May.
There is also a short discussion of the ENSO condition and it is looking less likely that there will be a Three-peat of the La Nina but that a near La Nina may be the more likely situation for Fall and Winter. Those forecasts can change but it looks like a marginally better situation with the focus on the words marginally better.
Real personal income declined in March 2022 but real personal consumption grew. Inflation is chipping away the value of the dollar.
As usual, we have included below the headlines and news summaries moving the markets today including: