Dan already summarized the meat of last Friday’s jobs report, but I wanted to briefly comment on one fairly esoteric point.  The Friday release included an annual “benchmark revision” to the population, labor force and jobs numbers.  Each year the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) updates historical data based on updates from the Census . . . → Read More: Jobs False Alarm

Today’s BLS jobs-report indicates the economy added 243 thousand jobs in January, which was about 90 thousand jobs above the consensus forecast of 155 thousand. Our forecast was 150,000. This gain was accompanied by a fall in the unemployment rate from 8.5 percent in December to 8.3 percent in January. The job-gains were pretty . . . → Read More: The January Jobs Report

The US savings rate is really low and has been for some time.  For many years this was explained by the argument that people were getting wealthy through appreciation of their homes and stock portfolios, so the need for saving out of current income was low.  And sure enough, household net worth did expand . . . → Read More: The Optimal Savings Rate

Louisiana Congressman Charles Boustany has introduced a bill banning withdrawals of welfare funds from ATMs at liquor stores, casinos, and strip clubs. Politicians do this sort of thing every now and then. It wasn’t that long ago that California’s legislature, in its own spasm of self-righteous Puritanism, was imposing its own, very similar, controls. . . . → Read More: Another Silly Idea

This morning’s much anticipated fourth quarter GDP release provides a preliminary estimate of real GDP growth of 2.8 percent. To be fair, perhaps the anticipation is experienced mostly by forecasting economists and financial market watchers. I am always particularly interested in fourth quarter as it closes out the year and in this case I . . . → Read More: The US 2011 Quarter 4 GDP Report