Category Archives: Deficit

Construction, gasoline prices, manufacturing, state and local contribution to gdp, restaurant performance index, saudi output, sun spots

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Headlines sound a lot better than the charts look.

Absolute levels and growth rates continue to fall short of prior cycles:

Construction Spending


Highlights
Construction outlays saw a broad-based gain in July. Construction spending rebounded 1.8 percent after a 0.9 percent dip in June. While all broad categories advanced, July’s increase was led by the public sector-up 3.0 percent, following a 1.8 percent decrease in June. Private nonresidential spending rebounded 2.1 percent in July after slipping 0.8 percent the month before. Private residential outlays gained 0.7 percent, following a 0.4 percent dip in June.

On a year-ago basis, total outlays were up 8.2 percent in July, compared to 7.0 percent the month before.

Overall, the latest construction data add to third quarter momentum. Third quarter GDP estimates will likely be nudged up. There is a lot of recent volatility in construction data but the residential gain is encouraging.

Unadjusted Construction Spending – Three Month Rolling Average Compared to the Rolling Average One Year Ago


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This helps consumers some and also puts downward pressure on ‘inflation’:


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Manufacturing continues to do reasonably well, chugging along about the way it always does until the cycle ends:


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Don’t be misled by the talk of state and local govt contributing to GDP. The spending side is only half the story- they also tax. So you need to look at state and local govt deficits to get an idea of their net contribution:

This is the spending side:


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It’s a bit tricky as you don’t want to double count federal $ spent by the states:

Sure enough, tax receipts which tend to be highly cyclical, going up when the economy does better, seem to have stalled, and state and local deficits have gone up. So is that an indicator of growth?

And it looks like state and local deficits did go up a tad, but not a lot:

And this just came out:


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The call on Saudi oil shows no signs of diminishing which they remain as ‘swing producer/price setter’, setting price and letting quantity adjust with demand:


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And this:
;)


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Real Fiscal Responsibility Today Radio and TV Show pilots

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The Real Fiscal Responsibility Talk Show Pilot Project

This project is for everyone tired of hearing economic commentary from those who got everything wrong. For decades the the doctrine of “Fiscal Responsibility” interpreted as long-term deficit reduction and Government austerity has had a secure place in American politics. The three of us proposing this project believe that this doctrine is the economic equivalent of the medieval notion that patients must be bled to cure them of disease.

The notion that austerity is necessary after running budget deficits caused by economic downturns is false and damaging to economies all over the world. We have opposed targeted deficit reduction and austerity in the blogosphere and in an e-book since 2010. Yet despite our efforts and the efforts of many others who using the Modern Money Theory (MMT) approach to economics, as well as other post-Keynesians, the mythology of austerity still survives, waiting in the wings until the next debt ceiling or budgetary crisis provides an opportunity for austerity partisans to push their nostrums of spending cuts and “Grand Bargains” once again.

We value Real Fiscal Responsibility highly, but that doesn’t lie in targeted deficit reduction, or in spending cuts for their own sake. Instead, it lies in targeting real impacts, real benefits, and real results, and fulfilling the needs of real people. We want to replace the false and damaging austerian accountant’s green eyeshade paradigm of so-called Fiscal Responsibility, evaluated against the arbitrary standards and scare tactics of debt-to-GDP ratios and public debt levels, with the human scale paradigm of Real Fiscal Responsibility, evaluated against the standard of fulfilling public purpose.

We seek funding for a pilot project for a new radio/video series that will present, and advocate for this paradigm change. The project will create six shows that we will then use to get the series picked up by an existing cable network.

Please visit the donation page.

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GDP

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A few charts/comments below. More after the first revision to Q2 come out. Looks to me like the macro constraint narrative is still intact.

Just a word here about state and local govt spending adding to GDP. Yes, there was an increase in spending. But tax receipts also went up, which subtracts from private spending. The thing to watch is net state and local spending, including borrowing to spend. I don’t have any charts, but anecdotally state and local budgets are said to be ‘improving’ which means less net spending.

GDP


Highlights
The second quarter rebounded more than expected from the adverse weather impacted first quarter. While there were a number of strong components, the rebound was led by inventory growth. The advance estimate for the second quarter posted at a healthy 4.0 percent annualized, following an upwardly revised decline of 2.1 percent in the first quarter (previously down 2.9 percent). The median forecast was for 3.1 percent. Today’s release includes annual revisions.

Final sales of domestic product rebounded 2.3 percent after dipping 1.0 percent in the first quarter. Final sales to domestic purchasers gained 2.8 percent in the second quarter, compared to 0.7 percent in the first quarter.

Turning to components, inventory investment jumped $93.4 billion after rising $35.2 billion in the first quarter. Importantly, personal spending posted a robust 6.2 percent gain, following a 1.0 percent rise in the prior quarter. Durables PCEs were particularly strong with nondurables healthy. Services posted on the soft side.

Residential investment rebounded notably in the second quarter and nonresidential investment was healthy. Government purchases were up but soft and net exports worsened notably.

On the price front, the chain-weighted price index firmed to a 2.0 percent increase, up from 1.3 percent in the first quarter. The core chain index increased 1.8 percent in the second quarter from 1.2 percent in the prior quarter.

Turning to annual revisions, 2013 on an annual average basis was revised up to 2.2 percent versus the prior estimate of 1.9 percent; 2012 revised down to 2.3 percent from 2.8 percent; and 2011 revised down to 1.6 percent from 1.8 percent.

Overall, the second quarter numbers point to a return to forward momentum after the deep freeze first quarter. While inventories led second quarter growth, this should not be disconcerting as the lack of production in the first quarter meant that significant inventory rebuilding was needed. Additionally, other GDP components (net exports being the key exception) were healthy.


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Average basic monthly wage posts 1st gain in June in over 2 years

July 31 (Kyodo) — The average basic monthly salary at companies with at least five employees rose 0.3 percent in June from a year earlier to 243,019 yen, marking the first rise in two years and three months, the labor ministry said Thursday. This year’s “shunto” spring labor offensive resulting in many unions winning a pay-scale increase pushed up the figure, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. The total monthly average, including bonuses, increased 0.4 percent to 437,362 yen. Nonscheduled cash earnings, such as overtime compensation, grew 1.9 percent to 19,058 yen. Real wages, adjusted for inflation, decreased 3.8 percent, down over 3 percent for the third consecutive month following the consumption tax hike in April.

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Consumer debt ratios

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Circled are the credit expansion from the ‘regrettable’ S and L expansion (over $1 trillion back when that was a lot of money), the ‘regrettable’ .com/Y2K credit expansion (private sector debt expanding at 7% of GDP funding ‘impossible’ business plans), and most recently the ‘regrettable’ credit expansion phase of the sub prime fiasco.

All were credit expansions that helped GDP etc. but on a look back would not likely have been allowed to happen knowing the outcomes.

So the question is whether we can get a similar credit expansion this time around to keep things going/offset the compounding demand leakages that constrain spending/income/growth.

Japan, for example, has been very careful not to allow a ‘regrettable’ private sector credit expansion since the last one came apart in 1991…

So yes, debt ratios look low, but without some kind of ‘regrettable’/fraudulent/etc. impetus this is about all we can expect given the demand leakages, etc?

And not to forget this an average of higher and lower income earners, with income being skewed upwards to those with lower propensities to spend. I had suspected the consumer would make a move, somewhat as in past cycles, but then FICA and sequesters took away a large chunk of the income/ammo needed to support it, while the demand leakages continued.


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Federal government tax receipts

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Federal government current tax receipts: Personal current taxes


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Federal government current receipts: Contributions for government social insurance


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The automatic fiscal stabilizers got some help from the FICA hike to cut net govt spending and throw a wet blanket over growth and maybe take a year or two off the duration of this cycle.

Lots of indicators looking very late cycle to me now.

This year’s deficit is now running less than 3% of GDP- about the same as the EU.
:(

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IMF’s Lagarde hints at world growth forecast cut – Reuters

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And remains ‘part of the problem’ vs ‘part of the solution’

Reuters noted comments from IMF chief Christine Lagarde, who said that global economic activity should strengthen in the second half of the year and accelerate through 2015, although momentum could be weaker than expected.

She said that central banks’ accommodative policies may only have limited impact on demand and that countries should boost growth by investing in infrastructure, education and health, provided their debt is sustainable.

She highlighted that the IMF’s update of its global economic outlook, expected later this month, will be “very slightly different” from the forecasts published in April. In addition, she noted that the US economy was rebounding after a disappointing first quarter, while it did not anticipate a brutal slowdown in China but rather a slight slowdown in output.

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Size of income tax drop surprises U.S. states

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This could be technical or a sign of trouble for the macro economy:

Size of income tax drop surprises U.S. states

June 12 (Reuters) — Personal income tax revenues in April were 15.8 percent, or $7.9 billion, below the same month in 2013, according to preliminary estimates from Rockefeller, a public policy research group at the State University of New York. From January through April income tax collections fell 7.1 percent from the same period in 2013, Rockefeller found. Out of the 38 states for which data is available 33 registered declines. Altogether 41 states collect personal income taxes. “While many states tried to be cautious in their forecasts, early figures indicate that income tax collections are below the forecasts in many states,” Rockefeller found.

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