From Chmura Economics, an analysis of the Midwest manufacturing boom, with lots of good micro-level data, here’s the opening: “Last year may well mark the beginning of a welcome, several-year expansion in the manufacturing sector. This manufacturing expansion has driven … read more >

Deborah Byers of Ernst & Young explains in Forbes why we should keep the current tax provisions for oil and gas companies, here’s an excerpt: “For the most part, energy companies are treated just like any other industry when it … read more >

1. The monthly Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index, based on real-time fuel consumption data for over the road trucking, rose 0.8% in May following a 0.1% increase in April and a 0.3% increase in March.  Here’s today’s report (note that … read more >

From USA Today last week around the time of the National Spelling Bee: “Louisa Moats, author of several textbooks about language, said good spelling, in a word, means credibility.”If a paper or an application or a report or even an … read more >

It hasn’t even been a month since I last posted about this….. 1. Corn subsidies have lowered the price of corn and it’s sweetener, extract-high fructose corn syrup…. 2. You are likely to spend more on your house and it’s … read more >

The Conference Board’s Employment Trends Index (a composite index of eight individual labor-market indicators) increased in May by 0.29% to 108.34, up from April’s revised reading of 108.3 (see chart above).  On a monthly basis, the Employment Trends Index (ETI) … read more >