Technically a good report. Not what they were expecting. The economy is still strong at the end of 2024. The third estimate of the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the third quarter of 2024 shows the economy grew at a 3.1% annual rate, which is higher than the 2.8% forecasted. Factors contributing to the […]
I would say Powell is taking a cautious approach. This comes with Trump taking office and Elon tinkering by edicts. The Federal Reserve carried out its third consecutive interest rate cut of the year Wednesday, as its monetary policy easing campaign shows signs of heading for a slowdown. Following its two-day meeting, the Federal Open […]
Two different and closely matching explanation of healthcare spending in 2023. One in writing and the other pictorial. The latter is easily explained by itself and also with the written explanation. Increases in cost for Medicare are mostly due the commercial Medicare Advantage. The outcomes of which are no better and can be worst. U.S. […]
The US is one of a small handful of countries that has a statutory limit on the federal debt. It used to be routine for Congress to raise the debt ceiling, but recently, House Republicans have been using the debt ceiling to extract political concessions from Democratic Administrations. While raising the debt ceiling wasn’t in […]
Jobless claims: with a dash of seasonality salt, trending towards weakness – by New Deal democrat As expected, jobless claims declined from one week ago, as the delayed Thanksgiving week seasonality moved out of the numbers. Initial claims declined -22,000 to 220,000, while the four week moving average increased 1,250 to 225,500. With the typical […]
An American First. It’s the Law in WA: Accrued Holding Gains are Income – by Steve Roth originally posted at Wealth Economics Excluding these massive “economic flows” from income simply doesn’t make any sense, in basic accounting terms. Starting with the 2022 tax year, Washington State implemented a first-in-the-nation (7%) tax on accrued holding gains […]
I have been writing on the costs of healthcare in the US for years and also presenting other articles discussing the same issue of cost and care. Over the years, it has not gone away and has only worsened. The 340B program which is supposed to be used to help those in lesser neighborhoods has […]
November 2024 Labor Stats as you can read for yourself. I am interested in seeing how the BLS screwed up on earlier employment reports over a period of time. The graphs show part of that period of time. Everything looks like what it should be. I am not going to start a campaign on what […]
– by New Deal democrat The very important construction data from the long leading housing sector was mixed this morning for November. The most leading datapoint, permits, increased 86,000 on an annualized basis to 1.505 million. Even more importantly, single family permits, which have the least noise and most signal of any of the datapoints, […]
I was happy to see this in my email box. It was a treat to read it. Mr. Krugman is going to have his own substack in the future, having left the New York Times. Paul Krugman on healthcare and the DOGE or healthcare and politics. The evidence of the ACA as Krugman pints out […]