Friday, May 31, 2013

Not so fun

In the US, the corporate tax take has slid dramatically in percentage terms.




Thursday, May 30, 2013

Whither away the US economy?

Normally, most of the time, and for most economies I've looked at, import volumes are strongly correlated with indicators of the real economy.  I've plotted the year-on-year change in my coinciding index for the US, (left hand axis) against the volume of imports into the US (right hand axis, extreme adjusted)

Note how imports have turned at the same time as, or even slightly ahead of, the overall economy.

And note how weak they are now.  Now of course, a weaker US$ has helped ....   But.  Combine this with the soggy PMI and I'm started to get a little concerned that the sharp fiscal tightening this year is starting to have unfortunate effects.  Wouldn't be the first time.


[Double-click to see bigger chart]

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Not so flash

The PMI "flash" survey result for May was very soggy.  Fiscal tightening is biting.