Insights and Reflections

The recent BLS revision has caused a stir. Please take 2 minutes to read it.

Every economist with skills knows that the BLS is fully transparent as to methods and results. Every skillful economist knows that dealing with numbers about a US labor force measured at over 150 million people it is a professional attempt at an estimation to obtain clarity. And every economist worth his/her salt knows that there is neither a conspiracy to hide data nor a political conspiracy to influence elections.  

A reader chastised me because I asked how Florida business schools are supposed to teach the economic and financial effects from climate change when they are not permitted to mention the words climate change in textbooks. The reader said the subject is “political” and has no place in financial/economic/market newsletters. That reader is entitled to his opinion. So are you.

Profits and GDP help explain the stock market rally of the post-Covid period.
 
Corporate earnings come from these profits. The computation of profits in the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) are derived from a consistent series. These are “economic profits” versus earnings reported using GAAP accounting (“generally accepted accounting principles”). 
 

On July 24th and after all the political turmoil, the CCC option adjusted spread (OAS) to US Treasurys was about 800 basis points and that is higher than at the end of March.  Source: Bloomberg.

Mr. Market had answered this way about recent uncertainty: “Gimme bad news or gimme good news, but don’t gimme no news.”

From me, personally, any assassination attempt on former President Trump is unacceptable and I condemn it without qualification. I would express exactly the same message if it were an assassination attempt on our current president, Joe Biden, or on any candidate for any American public office. Murderous behavior is disturbing and distressing. It is a total violation of America’s Rule of Law.

Biden and Trump: They have been and are being observed in real time by Putin, Kim, Xi, Khamenei, et al.

Peter Boockvar routinely updates the shipping costs being imposed on the world by behaviors of certain bad actors like Putin in Russia and like the Houthis in Yemen. Here’s a recent update, from June 20th.

We’re going to start this commentary about Cuba with a Reuters report describing Vladimir Putin’s disappointing May 9 speech on the occasion of Russia’s victory in World War 2. From Putin’s remarks you would think the allies, including the US, were minor players in defeating Nazi Germany.

IMO, America’s enemy, Mr. V. Putin, is using his Venezuelan proxy, Nicolás Maduro, to open a third front against the US. At the end of this discussion is a list of citations in support of my view.

We will start this commentary with an excerpt from “Hearts and Bones,” a famous Paul Simon song of the early 1980s. At the end is a link to a YouTube of the song and a detailed explanation of how the song and its album came about.