It’s not surprising that the Census Bureau would report another weird sideways trend in wholesale sales. After all, the agency has already produced that kind of pattern in the related data for durable goods. For reasons that aren’t going to be explained, economic activity across the supply chain from producers to consumers has been curtailed. [...]
The Federal Reserve reported yesterday that revolving consumer credit in the US rose by a seasonally adjusted $10 billion in the month of July 2019. That was the largest single monthly increase since November 2017. Given how the latter month was related to “residual seasonality”, meaning Americans spending perhaps more than they wanted for the [...]
Any recession still retains its inventory roots. Back when manufacturing ruled the US economy, an unanticipated buildup would be all it took to trigger one. Goods would begin stacking up on the wholesale level once retailers found it harder to move what they already had. This in turn caused wholesalers to put the brakes on [...]
It’s so obscure now, I actually had to go back and reread what was going on there at the time. On May 29, the mainstream consensus was how Italian populists were screwing up Europe. Global bond markets were supposed to be selling off, massacred as global recovery took hold. Instead, worldwide the most liquid, safe [...]
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