– 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 […]

Taxing land and not improvements according to the value of the land? Sounds like a novel idea. Review: Land is a Big Deal – The one-handed economist, Daniel Zetland OB recommended this 2022 book by Lars Doucet (LD) because I was asking for advice on lowering rents in the NL. LD writes with a different style from […]

Been to Minnesota camping and canoeing in the boundary waters. Other than swatting mosquitos, it was invigorating the two weeks I was up there. The only other place I have camped (with family this time) was northern Wisconsin on Madeline Island. What has happened in Minnesota is not reminiscent of the state I know of […]

How things have changed since then. You do not get to shoot civilians, and you will not have live rounds. You will have your rifle, and your bayonet. That was what was our order in the early seventies were after we were trained for riot control. That is when or if we were called out […]

 – by New Deal democrat Now that we have the very important personal income and spending data through November, here is a look at the widely acknowledged monthly indicators that the NBER has highlighted in determining whether the economy is continuing to expand, or is contracting. The below link includes nonfarm payrolls (blue), industrial production (red), […]

Not sure what Trump would mean by such. He alone can not stop elections. “Trump Keeps Saying We Won’t Have Meaningful Midterms” Bad Crow Review Plus “missionary lizards” and JD Vance, plus homicidally stupid press tricks, plus music. Not in those exact words, of course; even our self-mutilated institutional press would have to report that. But he […]

Another interesting piece by Federal Tax Policy Vice President Erica York at the Tax Foundation. One premise . . . “an analysis suggests the administration could replace 56% to 73% of IEEPA revenue using Section 122 tariffs.” Over the past week, we received final tariff collections data for 2025 from the Treasury Department, a new Beige Book from the Fed, and a […]

 – by New Deal democrat There’s no new data of note today or tomorrow, so in the meantime (aside from observing Martin Luther King’s birthday) let me take a look at a very important, if small piece of economic data: the “real” price of gas. Gas price shocks have been important precipitants of a number of […]

“The Minneapolis Crucible” – Paul Krugman January 15, 2026 Will we forge democracy anew? When Trump won the 2024 election, I feared rightly) our democracy would soon be in great peril. Between gerrymandering, a corrupt Supreme Court, a compliant Republican Party, and a tsunami of political donations from the tech broligarchy, I thought American democracy […]

– by New Deal democrat Industrial production is much less central to the US economic picture than it was before the “China shock,” but it remains an important if diminished economic indicator, particularly since the month it has peaked in the past has typically been the month the NBER has chosen as the economic cycle peak. […]