The Durable Goods, advance report shows new orders just jumped off of a cliff in December. New orders plunged -5.1% and even worse, November new orders was revised down to -0.5%. Not to be outdone, December shipments is also horrific with a -2.2% drop. Core capital goods new orders also plunged by -4.3%. Without transportation new orders, which includes aircraft, durable goods new orders would have decreased by -1.2%.
The Consumer Price Index decreased by -0.1% for December as energy prices declined. Gasoline alone decreased -3.9% for the month. Inflation without food or energy prices considered increased 0.1% for the month. From a year ago overall CPI has increased 0.7%, which is very tame and the second slowest rate in 50 years.
Last week the Mortgage Monitor for November(pdf) from Black Knight Financial Services reported that there were 697,944 home mortgages, or 1.38% of all mortgages outstanding, remaining in the foreclosure process at the end of November, which was down from 721,435, or 1.46% of all active loans that were in foreclosure at the end of October, and down from 1.81% of all mortgages that were in foreclosure in November of last year.
The Federal Reserve Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization report shows more malaise for the U.S. manufacturing sector. The bad news is industrial production dropped by a hefty -0.4% for December. Worse, November was revised downward 0.3 percentage points to a -0.9% monthly decline October also was negative, a -0.2% decline, and September showed no change.
Our trade deficit fell by 5.0% November, after rising by a revised 5.0% in October, as the net value of both our exports and imports decreased. The Census report on our international trade in goods and services for November indicated that our seasonally adjusted goods and services trade deficit fell by $2.2 billion to $42.4 billion in November from a October deficit which was revised from $43.9 billion to $44.6 billion.
The December unemployment report seems like nothing but good news. The official unemployment rate did not change and is 5.0%. The ranks of employed swelled and those not in the labor force shrank. The labor participate rate ticked up a tenth of a percentage point to stand at a still very low 62.6%. Overall, this month's CPS report belies some of the other ominous economic news.
With its release of November construction spending data, the Census revised all its construction data going back to January 2005, and admitted a large "processing error" that had caused all residential construction data to be misstated in the interim.
I have previously made the policy case for why I believe conservatives should support Donald Trump. Briefly, the two main pillars of Trump’s campaign, support for immigration restriction and opposition to global “free” trade deals, are conservative in effect and in the most basic sense of the term, contrary to the protests of some free enterprise uber alles “conservative” ideologues.
Hillary Clinton will not tame Wall Street. She'll talk the talk, but unlike Sanders, she won't walk the walk. She and her husband have always been a part of the problem. She defends Bill's record on Wall Street, so how can Hillary now claim to part of the solution? And by the way, Michael Douglas endorsed her.
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