– by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. “Consumers Back Off – Slightly” There was little change this week, but restaurant reservations – the first expense I would expect stretched consumers to cut back on – did slacken a little bit. And withholding tax payments over the past four weeks barely […]

“So far, 206 Afrikaners have resettled in Ohio, a state that has struggled with population decline for decades. The Trump administration recently announced it plans to increase by 10,000 the number of refugee resettlement places for South Africans this year. “But since arriving in the US, Afrikaners – largely the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of Dutch settlers […]

Report on Oil coming out of the middle east as Trump and Iran try to find common ground. This is way out of the ordinary and pretty much did not have to occur except for an oversized ego in the western hemisphere trying to make his mark globally. I am sure people will remember this […]

– by New Deal democrat I’ve been ambivalent about whether the mania for AI is a Boom or a Bubble. That’s because whether its use is transformative or, like Steve Jobs’ claims that the Segway would revolutionize transportation, not so much.  But what has become increasingly clear is that virtually the entire economy has been […]

Its Saturday and I am on the run. So, I am being brief. Another Dean Baker piece. This time on Immigrants. The one thing I keep saying over and over again is about our replacement rate. This is not like after WWII when men came home from WWII. got married, and population increased dramatically. The […]

Talking Election Politics Hers . . . It has been five years since we lived in Michigan. Mallory took office in 2019 as a State Senator. She appeared competent and I did support her running for office. Apparently, she has done well enough and is popular enough to run as a Federal Senator. Her opponent’s […]

You may have seen that Speaker Mike Johnson wants Social Security to be “fixed” after the midterms. The fact that he wants to wait until after the midterms tells you everything you need to know. He’s using “fixed” in the sense of what you do to your dog if you don’t want puppies. Republicans know […]

Factory construction has trended downward due to economic uncertainty, throughput improvements, material costs increasing, and increasing interest rates. Companies are not willing to risk investment at this time without a sound future forecast to utilize additional factory production. The surge in 2024 was driven by policies such as the CHIPS Act. Demand cooled as companies […]

 – by New Deal democrat I just wanted to drop a brief note about this morning’s PPI report. In May headline producer prices rose 1.1% for the month (the second such increase in a row), and on a YoY basis increased 6.5%. Final demand goods prices are up 9.1% YoY, and final demand services up 4.9%: […]

 – by New Deal democrat Last week I wrote that “we’re coming up on the one year anniversary of that change of regime, so it will be interesting to see if the negative YoY comparisons continue, or if they fade away. This week’s numbers are noteworthy in that regard, because they suggest that – maybe – […]