wages

As I mentioned last week, I am on a winter break. So I haven’t been able to post over the past several days. But I have been following the news flow and wanted to make a few comments on what I am seeing regarding the US.

Former Morgan Stanley Chief Economist Stephen Roach isn’t buying the US recovery. The economist, now a Senior Fellow at Yale University, talked to Bloomberg Television's "Surveillance" earlier today to discuss the US economy, as well as…

Wage increases are vital for Abenomics - without them the current policies are simply unsustainable (see discussion). If consumers are squeezed (see post), spending will decline and the nation will face deflationary pressures once again.…

The argument that unemployment happens when wages fail to adjust sufficiently to changed market dynamics is a well-aired one. But explanations of "sticky wages" tend to focus on structural rigidities such as employment protection…

The danger of Japan's current policy (Abenomics) is that the outcome could turn out to be the exact opposite of what was originally intended. With wages stagnant, these import-driven price increases are hitting the Japanese consumer quite…

Consumer spending in the US accelerated in November, boosting projections for the GDP growth in the fourth quarter. While incomes grew as well, the rate of increases from the same period last year has slowed. With confidence improving,…

Yesterday, the FOMC decided to reduce the pace of its large scale asset purchase program from $85 billion per month to $75 billion per month. The Fed has long wanted to taper its LSAP program and move to forward guidance to normalize policy…

The data on the global economy continue to improve. The US expansion has continued, Europe is exiting recession and China’s growth his defying expectations of a slowdown. All of this portends well for 2014. Part one of the data and analysis…

The latest flow of funds data from the US Federal Reserve show that the great American household deleveraging may be over. This should add a credit accelerator to the US economy which maintains growth. Meanwhile analysts are increasingly…

Today is the day when the much anticipated jobs report was released. And the data were good. The jobs report was not the big news in my view, however, because at the same time we saw the jobs numbers we also got personal income numbers -…