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

Will AI take all the jobs?

Noah Smith has a blog post arguing that AI won’t take away all the jobs from humans. It’s a clever and well-written post that deserves your attention. Here are some money grafs: “So as AI gets better and better, and gets used for more and more different tasks, the limited global supply of compute will […]

Death of the 6% commission

Apparently, the National Association of Realtors has agreed to eliminate rules on commissions. “The NAR, which represents more than 1 million Realtors, also agreed to put in place a set of new rules. One prohibits agents’ compensation from being included on listings placed on local centralized listing portals known as multiple listing services, which critics […]

Industrial and manufacturing production improve for the month, but 16+ month fading trend continues

Originally Published at The Bonddad Blog Industrial production is an indicator that has faded somewhat in importance in the modern era since China’s accession to normal trading status in 2000. Before that, a downturn in production was an excellent coincident indicator for a general downturn in the economy. Since then there have been several downturns, […]

Good news and bad news Thursday: the good news is jobless claims . . .

 Bonddad Blog – by New Deal democrat This morning brought us both good and bad economic news. The good news was that initial jobless claims continue very low, at 209,000, down -1,000 from last week, while the four week average declined -500 to 208,000. Even better, after major downward revisions, continuing claims rose 17,000 to 1.811 […]

The most potent labor market indicator of all is still strongly positive

The Bonddad Blog  – by New Deal democrat On Monday I examined some series from last Friday’s Household survey in the jobs report, highlighting that they more frequently than not indicated a recession was near or underway. But I concluded by noting that this survey has historically been noisy, and I thought it would be […]

Probing the Impact of Private Equity in Healthcare

Not rewriting anything on this commentary or adding to it. Shahon Firth covers a lot of territory in his brief commentary. Probe Into Private Equity in Healthcare Launched, MedPage Today, Shannon Firth Government officials announced a joint investigation into the role of private equity and “corporate profiteering” in healthcare during an online workshop hosted by […]

February consumer inflation: the tug of war between gasoline and shelter continues

February consumer inflation: the tug of war between gasoline and shelter continues The Bonddad Blog  – by New Deal democrat Last month I described the trend in consumer inflation as an ongoing “tug of war” between energy and housing. Energy (mainly gasoline) peaked in June 2022 and made its low in June 2023, while housing, […]