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

Gasoline, Part D, and Medicare Inflationary Increases

Simple commentary. Just started to receive information on increases. Gasoline is a no brainer. We drive a fuel efficient vehicle and do five over as opposed to what others do. It is interesting to hear the complaints. Thirty-gallon gasoline tank plus fast driving and you are getting into some serious money. You can only tell […]

New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators for September 11 – 15 2023

Weekly Indicators for September 11 – 15 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The only significant change in any metric is that manufacturing, as measured by the average of the new orders sub-indexes of the regional Feds’ monthly reports is on the very cusp of […]

Not Stepping Aside – What Do We Do?

Democrats are good at killing themselves politically in elections. We are also good at not pushing back when our candidates are under fire. Instead, we find excuses to promote others as substitutes. Or, we take our voting to other extremes such as voting for Disney characters, the family dog or cat, themselves, etc. You do […]

Industrial production, the King of Coincident Indicators

Has industrial production, the King of Coincident Indicators, been dethroned?  – by New Deal democrat Industrial production in the post-WW2 era was the King of Coincident Indicators. In the past 20 years, it may have been dethroned. To wit, in August production increased 0.4% to a new post-pandemic high, but only 0.1% above its previous […]

New Model Oversized Cars are ridiculously Large

Too Big, too Loud, and Too fast appears to be the thing these days. Either they are jacked up squatting, large tired, multiple rear tires, altered mufflered, adjusted emission control to emit soot from acceleration, etc. Anything to gain attention for those who probably never received such while growing up. As children, we all had […]

Real retail sales continue to be weak

Real retail sales continue to be weak; continue to forecast weakening jobs reports  – by New Deal democrat As usual, retail sales is one of my favorite metrics because it tells us so much about the consumer and, indirectly, the labor market and the total economy. Nominally, retail sales rose 0.6% in August. So did […]

mRNA vaccines “an unsafe medication?”

This just blows me away every time I read one of these articles about what people are thinking about Covid vaccines. And then there is some pseudo-authority who is reinforcing the false paradigm on whether the vaccines works. “Sick, sick, sick,” Digby’s Hullabaloo, digbysblog.net Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo calls the mRNA vaccines “an unsafe […]

United Auto Workers Go on Strike

The action by the United Auto Workers is part of a burst of labor activism attempting to reverse a decades-long trend. The trend as noted in the following graph. How the Latest Labor Strikes Are Attempting to Reverse Decades-Long Trends, The New York Times, David Leonhardt. (If you are having issues linking to this article […]

Economic tailwind from falling commodity prices has likely ended

The economic tailwind from falling commodity prices has likely ended  – by New Deal democrat [Note: I’ll post on the August retail sales report later today.] Two days ago in my PPI and CPI overview, I wrote; “I am most interested in whether the producer price report tells us that the big decline in commodity prices is […]