There is a lot of commentary about the unemployment rate. Various pundits are determined to find the worst possible interpretation of data, and also to impugn any official reports. Let us take a closer look. Many of the answers come from the following source, helpfully highlighted by Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture: Measuring Unemployment […]
On the anniversary of the fall of Lehman, it is natural to analyze the historic events. It often takes many years to draw the right lessons from history. Sometimes it never happens. For example, there are still debates about Vietnam. Some see the mistake as engaging a ground force in Asia. Some see the problem […]
Early this summer we raised a number of questions in our Summer Quiz. The objective was both to enlighten and to help investors make wise investment decisions over the summer. As we hoped, anyone who took the quiz seriously has had a profitable summer. (We'll try to wrap up the answers and award the prize, […]
Each month we ask the question, "What change in payroll employment would be consistent with other economic data from the same time period (the middle of the prior month)? This is not a forecast, per se, since we do not posit any causal relationship among these variables. They are all concomitant indicators of economic activity. […]
Here at "A Dash" we have been anxiously awaiting the release of the Business Employment Dynamics Report for the fourth quarter of 2008. Why should anyone care about a release about data that are nine months old? Setting the Stage September of 2008 was the crucial time for the credit crisis, the economy, and the […]