Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

#TangPing (“lying flat”)

#TangPing (“lying flat”) China’s new ‘tang ping’ trend aims to highlight pressures of work culture (from BBC) Young people in China exhausted by a culture of hard work with seemingly little reward are highlighting the need for a lifestyle change by “lying flat”. The new trend, known as “tang ping”, is described as an antidote […]

Weekly Indicators for May 31 – June 4 at Seeking Alpha

 – by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for May 31 – June 4 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. On the one hand, it’s amazing just how positive the indicators are almost across the board – including long term Treasuries getting relaxed about the inflation scare. On the other hand, […]

The Big Lie

Ross Barnett didn’t invent the big lie, but he was a practitioner. One might even say that Ross was to the manor born. The big lie had been a southern thing from the get go; comes with the turf. First you must lie to yourself, and so they did. Hitler appropriated, without acknowledgment, the concept […]

Wings

Why the reference to the wings in re the two major political parties? Are we being asked to envision either of our two major political parties as a bird, an aircraft. If so, each would surely have two matching wings, one on either side of the body/fuselage. Maybe they meant to make an analogy with […]

May jobs report: almost all positive, but not good enough

May jobs report: almost all positive, but not good enough HEADLINES: 559,000 jobs added: 492,000 private sector plus 67,000 government. The alternate, and more volatile measure in the household report indicated a gain of 444,000 jobs, which factors into the unemployment and underemployment rates below. The total number of employed is still 7,629,000, or 5.0% […]

New jobless claims continue strong decline, consistent with ongoing recovery, while continuing claims continue mixed

New jobless claims continue strong decline, consistent with ongoing recovery, while continuing claims continue mixed New jobless claims continue to be the most important weekly economic datapoint, as increasing numbers of vaccinated people and outdoor activities have led to an abatement of the pandemic – deaths are at their lowest point in over a year, […]

My Latest Book

My Latest Book Heck, I might as well brag here when I have the opportunity, and I do.   So, just a couple of days ago my latest book came out from Springer Nature.  It is called Foundations and Applications of Complexity Economics.  I am not going to go on about it or its contents other than […]

May manufacturing continues white hot; April construction spending shows signs of being constrained by materials and costs

May manufacturing continues white hot; April construction spending shows signs of being constrained by materials and costs It’s the first of the month, which means we get our first look at May data in the form of the ISM manufacturing index, as well as April construction spending. The questions we are looking for information to […]