Archives: August 2008

Inflation: Make vs Buy

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 28, Categories: Macro

Should the Fed be worried about inflation? It depends on whether Bernanke and friends are looking at the prices of what we make, or the prices of what we buy....

Winners and Losers in this Business Cycle

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 26, Categories: Income Distribution

Assuming that the boom ended in 2007, the new census data allows us to identify the big winners and losers in this business cycle. Obviously a high school or a...

No Income Gain for Young College Grads

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 26, Categories: Labor Market

The latest income distribution numbers are out from the Census Bureau. There's something there for everyone, Democrats and Republicans. Real median household income is up, real mean household income is...

Misreading the Inflation Data

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 19, Categories: Organizations

I figured I'd do the previous post a different way. Today's PPI report contains data on both goods and services. The only one that anyone ever quotes is the goods...

PPI Goods Index is misleading--services inflation falling

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 19, Categories: Macro

Yes, I know the headlines say "Wholesale prices rising at fastest pace since 1981." That's from Associated Press. All the other online news service--CNN, the NYT, Reuters, Bloomberg--have roughly the...

My Whereabouts...

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 12, Categories: Teaching

...deep on the Jersey shore, putting fixes onto the final pages of my textbook ("Economics:The Basics" -- very very soon to appear from McGraw-Hill). For a break, I walk along...

Size of Possible Revisions

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 01, Categories: Labor Market

The labor market report this morning shows that private sector jobs are down by 418K over the past year. That doesn't seem so bad. However, history suggests that the revisions...

Labor Market Getting Worse--How Long?

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 01, Categories: Labor Market

This morning's employment report shows the unemployment rate now up to 5.7%, while the private sector lost 76K jobs. Outside of health and social assistance, the loss was 110K. Now,...