Mike Konczal and Niko Lusiani at the Roosevelt Institute take a closer quantitative look at the sources of inflation the last two years: This research brief is the first to explore the size and distribution of markups (essentially the difference between sales and marginal costs) and profit margins across 3,698 firms operating in the US […]

I do not have an exact date when this was written. It appears to have been update May 2021. I find it interesting as US automakers are making moves to switch from combustion powered vehicles to electrically powered vehicles utilizing rechargeable batteries to provide the power. US automaker Ford is so committed to this conversion; […]

Review of “Demagogue” “Demagogue: The life and long shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy” by Larry Tye is a particularly timely read as the nation continues in the grip of another political bully, Donald Trump. The parallels in their methods are striking and the degree to which McCarthy held the nation in thrall during the 1950s […]

If you believe railroads do not count much anymore in the American economy, you need to rethink your thought. For a major automotive company, I was coordinating shipments to and from Asia via container, rail, and ocean. It was not that hard if you understood the lead times, customs, shipping and rail, and the bottlenecks. […]

The Ukraine war spike in energy prices has completely unwound  – by New Deal democrat I plan on putting up a Coronavirus update later today, because there have been a few significant developments (No, the pandemic is *NOT* over) particularly as they relate to the next few months. Tomorrow and Wednesday, we get our first […]

Real aggregate payrolls and recessions  – by New Deal democrat One of my favorite indicators for the overall economic health of the American working and middle classes is real aggregate payrolls for non-supervisory workers. This is kind of self-explanatory. Rather than measure hourly wages, this is the *total* amount of wages paid to non-supervisory workers, […]

August industrial production declines; overall decelerating trend consistent with recession in 2023  – by New Deal democrat Finishing today’s data dump, industrial production, the King of Coincident Indicators, declined -0.2% in August, while manufacturing production increased 0.1%. July’s sharp gains in both were revised slightly (-0.1%) downward:  While July remains the high water mark for overall […]

Positive real retail sales in August, but YoY flatness continues  – by New Deal democrat Retail sales, probably my favorite monthly economic datapoint, increased 0.3% in August. Since consumer prices rose 0.1%, real retail sales rose 0.2%: That’s certainly good news. Now here’s the bad news: July’s retail sales were revised downward by -0.4%, so […]