Tag Archives: personal spending

A nod to just how backward and upside down the world is now. The economic data everyone is made to pay attention to, payrolls, that one is, in my view, irrelevant. As is the consumer price estimates from earlier this week, the PCE Deflator. That’s another one which receives vast amounts of interest even though it is already old news. Yet, in the very same data release as the PCE, some other accounts importantly tied to labor, personal income, they slip unnoticed...

We’re only ever given the two options: the economy is either in recession, or it isn’t. And if “not”, then we’re led to believe it must be in recovery if not outright booming already. These are what Economics says is the business cycle. A full absence of unit roots. No gray areas to explore the sudden arrival of only deeply unsatisfactory “booms.” Every once in a while, however, even the mainstream media meanders closer to the actual economics (small “e”) of the...

Following the same recent pattern as the BLS and its CPI, the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s (BEA) PCE Deflator ran up hotter in May 2021 than its already high increase during April. The latter’s headline consumer basket rose 3.91% year-over-year, its fastest pace since August 2008. The core rate, which excludes food and energy prices, accelerated to 3.39% from 3.11%, the highest since the early nineties. Having gone through this for two consecutive months, the...