Tag Archives: CARES Act

The ISM reported a small decline in its manufacturing PMI today. The index had moved up to 59.3 for the month of October 2020 in what had been its highest since September 2018. For November, the setback was nearly two points, bringing the headline down to an estimate of 57.5. At that level, it really wasn’t any different from where it had been at its multi-year high the month before. Neither are indicative of any sort of “V” shaped recovery, or any shaped recovery....

The missing piece so far is consumers. We’ve gotten a glimpse at how businesses are taking in the shock, both shocks, actually, in that corporations are battening down the liquidity hatches at all possible speed and excess. Not a good sign, especially as it provides some insight into why jobless claims (as the only employment data we have for beyond March) have kept up at a 2mm pace. These are second order effects. In terms of consumer spending, it’s, as always,...

The numbers just don’t add up. Even if you treat this stuff on the most charitable of terms, dollar for dollar, way too much of the hole almost certainly remains unfilled. That’s the thing about “stimulus” talk; for one thing, people seem to be viewing it as some kind of addition without thinking it all the way through first. You have to begin by sizing up the gross economic deficit it is being haphazardly poured into – with an additional emphasis on...