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

New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators for January 26-30

My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democrat The trends in the high frequency data that became apparent after last summer have continued, and if anything are intensifying. In particular, a real surge in commodity prices and somewhat in a mirror image, the US$ decline which is beginning to […]

A lot of BS Before You Get to the Actual Lie

John Amato at Crooks and Liars The “18 Trillion Dollar Lie Should Have Trump Kicked Out of Office” During Pres. Biden’s administration, any mispronunciation or slip up was cause for a meltdown in the right-wing media that transitioned and bubbled up into the mainstream media on almost a weekly basis. However, President Biden never exaggerated, […]

“ICE in My Latte, Not in Our Communities”

What is happening down in Arizona? These businesses will be giving up Friday’s revenue by shutting down a day in protest of the government’s actions and the killing of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by Federal authorities. ~~~~~~~ “Local businesses closing Friday (January 31, 2026) to protest ICE raids,” The Copper Courier Fair Trade Cafe in […]

Economically weighted regional Fed indexes for January suggest continued stagflationary pressures [Update: PPI as well]

– by New Deal democrat To briefly reiterate, although the government shutdown ended over two months ago, much of the official monthly data – including on sales and spending – is stale, dating to November and even earlier. So the most current measures of these are the ISM manufacturing and non-manufacturing reports, due next week, and […]

Medicare Advantage Plan from a Year Ago

This piece by Merrill Goozner was written one year ago to the month. Merrill covers a lot of territory in his healthcare discussions. There is one other person who also is very knowledgeable about Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans. As Merrill says there is not need for 5% increases in pricing for Medicare Advantage plans […]

Back to the future

What is going on within companies when they find their sales decreasing??? Some graphics, occurrences, and facts to explain what may be going on today. Layoff numbers . . . Graphics taken from “intellizence.” Additional numeric can be found at the “intellizence” site. Click on the link in the company name. There is a broader […]

Animal research is irreplaceable

I spent my entire research career working on animals. In this case, the animals were Drosophila melanogaster, or “fruit flies.” I dissected tens of thousands of larval salivary glands because their giant polytene chromosomes afforded a relatively high resolution map of the genome. I made over 100 transgenic lines to gain insight into gene function. […]

Jobless claims: the positive regime change continues, suggesting a lower unemployment rate ahead

 – by New Deal democrat Let’s take our normal weekly look at jobless claims. As a general reminder, these are a good high frequency short leading indicator for the economy as a whole, and also somewhat noisily for the monthly unemployment rate. In the past several months, I have highlighted what appears to be a “regime […]