As unemployment remains low, and inflation elevated (though decelerating), should we pause all of our recession fears and enjoy the expansion of the economy?
Hello. I have a question about the good/bad of the last inflation numbers. Two questions actually - both related to natural gas.
Q1) I see that the cost for heating of natural gas was the highest (or one of the highest) inflationary items. If we removed this item from the inflation index (I think it's called the CCI?) how would we have faired?
Q2) For my personal gas bill jumped from $24 Dec-2022 to $76 Jan-2023 even though I have (almost) consumed the same amount of fuel (I live in Southern California). Further, I own shares of natural gas in my portfolio (UNG to be exact). And on the commodities market, natural gas, like UNG is at an all time low (I looked back to 2010). What causes such a disconnect between the cost to the consumer to heat their home and the price on the commodities market that can explain such a gross increase as 300%?
You're right, macroeconomics is a turn-on, to be sure! :-)
Thank you for the offer to consider responding to (dopey) questions, as follows:
1. The 4-mos Treasury Bill. Back on 19.Oct.22, it looked like the Treasury started tracking a 4-month Treasury bill. If this was a new offering in the fixed income markets, why did they expand the granularity of short-term tenors - wedging in this security in between the 3-mos and 6-mos offerings? What is accomplished by adding a 4-month security?
2. How are increases in regulatory costs factored into macroeconomic modeling? Shouldn't such increases, if sufficiently large, introduce upward pressure on the cost of doing business, and therefore have an inflationary influence? For example, I read one report that suggested the Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting rules, passed in 2022, regarding a final rule implementing the beneficial ownership information reporting requirements of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) will imposed an increased in compliance costs for the US economy of about US$80 bn. These regulations go into effect on January 1, 2024. Not exactly a trivial impact, especially in aggregate with all other regulatory changes.
3. Will Westham escape relegation, or will it have to recruit a famous and charismatic Hollywood actor to help it return to EPL status in 2024? :-)
As unemployment remains low, and inflation elevated (though decelerating), should we pause all of our recession fears and enjoy the expansion of the economy?
Hello. I have a question about the good/bad of the last inflation numbers. Two questions actually - both related to natural gas.
Q1) I see that the cost for heating of natural gas was the highest (or one of the highest) inflationary items. If we removed this item from the inflation index (I think it's called the CCI?) how would we have faired?
Q2) For my personal gas bill jumped from $24 Dec-2022 to $76 Jan-2023 even though I have (almost) consumed the same amount of fuel (I live in Southern California). Further, I own shares of natural gas in my portfolio (UNG to be exact). And on the commodities market, natural gas, like UNG is at an all time low (I looked back to 2010). What causes such a disconnect between the cost to the consumer to heat their home and the price on the commodities market that can explain such a gross increase as 300%?
You're right, macroeconomics is a turn-on, to be sure! :-)
Thank you for the offer to consider responding to (dopey) questions, as follows:
1. The 4-mos Treasury Bill. Back on 19.Oct.22, it looked like the Treasury started tracking a 4-month Treasury bill. If this was a new offering in the fixed income markets, why did they expand the granularity of short-term tenors - wedging in this security in between the 3-mos and 6-mos offerings? What is accomplished by adding a 4-month security?
2. How are increases in regulatory costs factored into macroeconomic modeling? Shouldn't such increases, if sufficiently large, introduce upward pressure on the cost of doing business, and therefore have an inflationary influence? For example, I read one report that suggested the Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting rules, passed in 2022, regarding a final rule implementing the beneficial ownership information reporting requirements of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) will imposed an increased in compliance costs for the US economy of about US$80 bn. These regulations go into effect on January 1, 2024. Not exactly a trivial impact, especially in aggregate with all other regulatory changes.
3. Will Westham escape relegation, or will it have to recruit a famous and charismatic Hollywood actor to help it return to EPL status in 2024? :-)
Thank you!!!!