Twelve years ago under Bush 43 52.36% of Americans had full-time jobs, today just 50.72% do, a deficit of 4.242 million full-time jobs

It's not an economic boom today anymore than September 2007 was, but after the catastrophe of 2008-2009 and the Obama years, some are just relieved that the torturer has stopped visiting their jail cells and mistake that for freedom.

September 2007 (click to enlarge)

September 2019 (click to enlarge)

Average miles traveled on US roads in 2019 through July looks flat compared with 2018

To put the complicated calculation in a nutshell, travel per person 16 years old and over averaged about 12,497 miles for the first seven months of 2019. The full year average for 2018 was 12,483.

So despite there being more cars on the road and population growing and a so-called economic boom, road travel has plateaued.

For another look at it, see Jill Mislinski here, whose population-adjusted road travel chart also shows that the flatlining began with 2017 and that 2005 was the peak year.

You are free to move about the country, but you are not, at least not like you were in a car. 

April 2019: 882K dropped out of labor force, labor force contracted 726K, employment level contracted 103K, participation rate fell to 62.8% (the 2016 average), average weekly hours so far in 2019 down 0.4 from 2018 average

Data.

Data.

Data.

Data.

Data.

But other than that it's an economic boom because total nonfarm is up 263K.

This has never been an economic boom, just more meh

Did Billy Cunningham mention the Trumpster's lousy February jobs number last night?

If he did I must have missed it.

20,000 jobs in February, worst performance in 9 years, but Billy Cunningham blathered on about how socialism fails and how Americans enjoy a high standard of living because of great companies like Kroger, Amazon and Walmart. No mention of this huge anomaly in the Trumpster's so-called economic boom.

I can remember when Walmart was widely perceived as the enemy by wide swaths of America because it destroyed mom and pop stores wherever it decided to leave its giant footprint. Walmart defended itself against this opposition with its "Buy American" policy, but those days are long gone now. Walmart and Amazon are now storefronts for Communist China and the globalism which took away America's best jobs for ordinary folks. And the tax breaks generally provided by state and local governments these days to get big businesses to locate where they are is hardly capitalism, but favoritism, state capitalism and fascism. Too much of American life is now the people vs. government and business allied together against them.

But more to the point is that Billy Cunningham's idea of a great America is an America that consumes, whereas the Protestant ethic which truly made America great was the one where people saved, invested and consumed beneath their means. I guess that ethic is not part of the Sunday homily at Billy's church.

It has been because of losing touch with this real meaning and practice of capitalism which has produced the moribund economic conditions where socialism now appears more attractive to growing numbers of Americans for whom capitalism-light has failed to deliver.

Too bad Billy doesn't really get it.  

If this were an economic boom earnings for most people would be increasing 3-4% instead of 2-3%

If this is an economic boom how come new home sales are at 1982 recession levels for a year and a half?

(h/t Jeffrey Snider)

Sorry Charlie: Jeff Cox of CNBC wildly exaggerates wages under Trump, "the last missing piece of the economic recovery"

Here in "Trump has set economic growth on fire":

Friday brought another round of good news: Nonfarm payrolls rose by a better-than-expected 201,000 and wages, the last missing piece of the economic recovery, increased by 2.9 percent year over year to the highest level since April 2009. That made it the best gain since the recession ended in June 2009. ... Indeed, the economy does seem to be on fire, and it's fairly easy to draw a straight line from Trump's policies to the current trends.

The wage series used by Cox for all workers differs little in August 2018 from the series for the 80% of workers who are production and nonsupervisory, except that the latter goes back much farther than 2006, giving a truer picture of where we are at. And where we are at is slightly better off than under Obama, but that's about it. It's still not as good as under George W. Bush, for crying out loud. And it's certainly not "on fire".

This is not an economic boom for most working people.

Noah Smith embraces the Trump narrative: "There’s no doubt that the U.S. economy is in a boom"

Here for Bloomberg.

After examining several indicators, which, however, are not unequivocal for their interpretation despite saying "no doubt", Noah Smith comes down on the side of improved sentiment as the cause of the current "boom".

On that we agree. There's a boom in sentiment.

The problem is, too many people are importing that improved sentiment into their reading of the data, and into their choice of the data.

For example, Smith focuses on job openings to unemployed, which is a tiny measure (6.66 million in June) of what's really going on in the labor market. But the broadest measures of unemployment still show 15.9 million unemployed, underemployed, and no longer counted in the labor force. There is still huge slack in the labor market, which is one reason why wages for the vast majority of workers are not rising like they would in a real economic boom (2.7% y/y in July vs. in the 4s in 2006/7).

Similarly Smith discusses the percent of population employed aged 25-54, but clearly misses that it's most definitely not "back to 2006 levels" as he claims (H1 2018 is at 79.2%, still below the 2006 average of 79.8% and also below the average of either half of 2006). The broadest measure of the percent employed, on the other hand, still shows a huge gap between now and the pre-Great Recession average when over 6 million more were employed than are at present (60.5% now vs. 62.9% then, on average).

The case is similar with domestic investment.

Smith chooses to highlight "Shares of gross domestic product: Gross private domestic investment: Fixed investment: Nonresidential (A008RE1Q156NBEA)" to show that "investment as a percentage of the economy is at about the level of the mid-2000s boom". But the current level in H1 2018 at 13.7% is also identical to H2 2014. Was that indicative of a boom? Did we blink and miss it? How about in H1 2008 when it was again at 13.7%? Was that indicative of a boom? If so, why did the economy then promptly crash in H2 2008?

A broader measure of domestic investment, however, "Shares of gross domestic product: Gross private domestic investment (A006RE1Q156NBEA)", shows us well off the 2006 peak and even the more recent 2015 level. Whatever we call what we have right now, the current 17.7% is still far below the 19.8% level of H1 2006, which itself failed to equal the boom level of the year 2000 (19.9%).

With all that cash unleashed by the tax reforms and sloshing around in the economy, one would think things would look a lot better than this, which simply shows that most of that money indeed went elsewhere.

GDP has been temporarily goosed by the tax reforms in concert with a fresh gusher of federal deficit spending. But those are one-offs. They will not, and cannot, be repeated over and over again in short succession.

We know what comes next.

Good comparison of the presidents on GDP by Justin Fox at Bloomberg

Guess Which Presidents Really Oversaw Economic Booms

Fox well reminds his readers that GDP is an inadequate measure in many respects, and gives credit where credit is due even when the numbers don't seem to show it.

His second chart is the better chart since it is a political comparison, which is what this is all about, pegging beginning and end of analysis to fourth quarters when presidents are elected or eclipsed.

He has Kennedy and Johnson first and second (5.5% and 5%), followed by Clinton (3.8%), Reagan 3.6%), Carter (3.2%) and Nixon 3.0%), then IKE (2.5%), then Ford and Bush 41 tied (2.2%), with Obama (1.9%) and Bush 43 (1.8%) bringing up the rear. (Trump so far is seventh, ahead of IKE but behind Nixon, at 2.7%).

A few quibbles.

The data is plenty fine for Truman 1948-1952. He should be included. His performance is the best of them all on a full term basis (5.54%), using the same compound annual growth rate Fox uses. The secret to Truman's success? He slashed government spending in the wind-down from World War II. No one seems to get that. By cutting taxes and not slashing spending, Republicans since Truman only defeat themselves and discredit what works.

Secondly, JFK didn't serve out his first term, Nixon his second. Therefore it makes more sense to view JFK coterminous with LBJ (5.19% together), and Ford with Nixon (2.73%), evaluating them together in two eight year periods of Democrat and Republican political administration respectively, which is what it was.

Third, Fox rounds his numbers, which obscures how close Bush and Obama were in their terrible records (1.83% and 1.88% respectively). 

All in all, though, we come up with similar results: Truman is first (5.54), followed by JFK/LBJ (5.19), Clinton (3.81), Reagan (3.55), Carter (3.19), Nixon/Ford (2.73), IKE (2.52), Bush 41 (2.21), Obama (1.88), and Bush 43 (1.83).

Trump's first year through 4Q2017 is 2.47%. Measured 2Q2017 on 2Q2018 just completed he's at 2.85%.

Only by comparison with the previous sixteen years is this anything to cheer about, but thankfully we have that.

If it's an economic boom why aren't inventories surging?

h/t Jeffrey Snider

GDP hysteria

Earlier in the week the economic calendar at FXStreet had indicated a consensus estimate of GDP at 4% for 2Q2018. With less than an hour to go, that prediction has risen to 4.1%.

GDPNow at The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta gave it's final prediction of 3.8% yesterday.

Cheerleaders for Trump on talk radio have been crowing like roosters about a booming economy, pointing to the unemployment rate, and they hope to GDP.

GDP consists of four major components: personal consumption, private investment, net imports/exports, and government consumption and investment.

That last one can contribute significantly when there are big increases to government spending, such as just occurred with defense spending.

I expect to see that reflected in this morning's report, but it shouldn't be confused with an economic boom anymore than stimulus spending under Obama.

Government can pay people to dig a hole and other people to fill it back in again, but that is not an economic boom. Neither is a fireworks display.

Fake economic boom: Industrial Production went negative in May 2018

Compared to the 1950s, this economy might as well be sleeping.

What economic boom? Show me!

Good Lord, Jeeves, The Atlantic fired Williamson but keeps nitwit writers who can't write

For example, this boob, who are clearly a college graduate, for whom mines excavate and unearth miraculously all by themselves:

But for all those years, the source material for the arguments have [sic] remained largely the same. ...

A team of archaeologists, historians, and climate scientists have [sic] constructed a history of Rome’s lead pollution, which allows them [sic] to approximate Mediterranean economic activity from 1,100 b.c. to 800 a.d. They [sic] found it hiding thousands of miles from the Roman Forum: deep in the Greenland Ice Sheet, the enormous, miles-thick plate of ice that entombs the North Atlantic island. In short, they [sic] have reconstructed year-by-year economic data documenting the rise and fall of the Roman Republic and Empire. ...

But these mines didn’t excavate [sic] pure silver: Instead, they unearthed [sic] an ore of silver, lead, and copper that had to be smelted into silver. ...

Once in the air, these lead emissions did not stay in one place. Instead, it [sic] wafted with the winds, eventually blowing into squalls and storms over Greenland. ...

The Crisis of the Roman Republic—the series of civil wars and political strife, spanning 134 b.c. to 27 b.c., that brought the Roman Republic to an end— were [sic] associated with a broad period of economic stagnation and disintegration, the study finds. And the early Roman Empire—especially the Pax Romana, the 206 years of mostly uninterrupted peace throughout the Mediterranean—were [sic] accompanied by an economic boom. ...

These simulations allow scientists to estimate how air from the Iberian peninsula—air that, in Roman times, would have been full of lead pollution—wafted up to the Greenland ice sheet. It [sic] also allowed them to distinguish between air from the Iberian peninsula specifically and ambient air from farther east in Europe.   

What economic boom? 1Q2018 real GDP at 2.3% disappoints again

Rush Limbaugh's "Not Working But Still Eating" soars to new record in January 2018: 96.7 million

Some economic boom, huh.

How come Neil Cavuto of FoxBusiness is so misinformed about the average age of US vehicles on the road?

Here:

What’s surprising right now is that while auto sales are predictably sluggish, they could be a heck of a lot worse. Auto analysts tell me that’s because the average car on the road is so old – close to nine years. Many owners have no choice but to replace their vehicles. But they’re clearly taking their time and many are waiting for just the right time, and the right sale.

Wrong Neil.

As of last August the average age was 11.4 years and climbing.

You don't go from 11.4 years to 9 years in less than a year.

If we had done so, we'd be in an economic boom right now instead of GDP in the toilet at -1.0%.

The Greatest Economic Boom Of Our Time Coincided With The Cheapest Gasoline

Arguably the greatest economic boom period of the 20th Century, the period between 1986 and 2000, was fueled, quite literally, by the cheapest gasoline prices on an inflation-adjusted basis since the end of The Great War. Real gas prices during those years in today's dollars ran down from $2.00 a gallon in the mid 1980s to $1.50 by the late 1990s and up again.

Chart and discussion, here.

Say what you will about former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich's presidential run in 2011-2012, he's the only public figure who has had the vision to understand the imperative of getting the price of gasoline below $2.50 a gallon to gun the economy.

With four more years of a regime which is the enemy of all things fossil fuel, expect little more than idling in the driveway.

Obama's Version Of Afroman's "Because I Got High"

It's like I don't care about nothing man

Roll another joint, ooh la da da da la da da la la da da

I was gonna start an economic boom, until I got high

I was gonna stop and end the doom, but then I got high

This country is still a tomb and I know why

(Why man?)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I was gonna cut the price of gas before I got high

I coulda drilled and kicked some ass, but I got high

(Uh uh la la da da)

Now the voters are takin' a pass and I know why

(Why man? Hey hey)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

(Go to the next one, go to the next one, go to the next one)

I was gonna git down to The Oval, but then I got high

(Oh oh)

I was gonna work on a campaign slogan, but I got high

(La da da da da)

So it's jus' "Forward" from Joe Stalin and I know why

(Why man?)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I was gonna find me a new church before I got high

I was gonna drop that Muslim lurch, but then I got high

(No you wasn't)

That Arab Spring won't bear research and I know why

(Why man? Yeah)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I wasn't gonna bail out the bankers, but I was high

(Uh, I'm serious man)

I was gonna jail all the wankers, but I was high

(Uh)

Now I'm just an old Dodd-Franker and I know why

(Ha ha ha, why man?)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I was gonna pay for the bills I wrote until I got high

(Say what? Say what?)

I wasn't gonna gamble all our gold, but then I got high

(Uh uh)

Now the debt load's sinkin' the boat and I know why

(Why man?)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I was gonna give you the public option, but then I got high

(Ooh, I'm serious)

I was gonna make it much cheaper too, but then I got high

(Oh)

Y'all'll be screwed before I'm through and I know why

(Ah, trying to shut off, ha ha ha)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I transformed the entire country because I got high

(Go go go)

I made every last road bumpy because I got high say

(What? Say what? Say what?)

It'll soon be third-world-dumpy and I know why

(Why man? Yeah yeah)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I'ma stop singing this song because I'm high

(Raise the ceiling baby)

I'm singing this whole thing wrong because I'm high

(Bring it back)

And if I don't sell one copy, I'll know why

(Why man? Yeah)

'Cause I'm high, 'cause I'm high, 'cause I'm high

La la da da da da la da da da shoobe do be do wa

Skibitty do da da da la get jiggy with it scubbydooby wa

(original video here)