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

There is a economic bad moon on the rise

Credence Clear Water ear worm for you. I see the bad moon arisingI see trouble on the wayI see earthquakes and lightnin’I see bad times today . . . Credit Credence Clearwater Unfortunately, it is true the nation overall is heading for bad economic times under the leadership of Tr_mp and his followers who are […]

August industrial production: overall neutral trend continues

– by New Deal democrat So much is imported that 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. It has been trending generally sideways this year, and that trend continued in August. Headline industrial production (blue in […]

Consumers say “hold my beer” to DOOOMing about Sales

– by New Deal democrat Retail sales is the first of two very important indicators we got this morning. Per yesterday, with employment growth “dead in the water” since April, consumer spending – which leads future employment – is the single most crucial element of a turning point.   It really is incredible how it takes a […]

Joe McCarthy (R-WI) pioneered the technique of creating a False Narrative of outright lies and outrageous statements

Trump’s efforts to remove Lisa Cook to appoint a lackey of his choice appears to have failed. It is one of those Have you no decency moments. To which I would suggest Tr__p and his followers doing his bidding really do not have such. Especially when the motives for doing what they did come to […]

Employment growth is dead in the water,

tomorrow we will find out about production and sales  – by New Deal democrat With no news today, let’s take a look at why two releases tomorrow are especially important. Let me begin with employment, which is “dead in the water.”  I’ve written before about how manufacturing and construction employment, and now the entire leading sector […]

Making the Fifties Real and Great Again

Another part of making America great again are the beliefs of the fifties. You really have to be around during that time period. There was a carry over into the sixties. August 28,1955, fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was lynched after being tortured by two white men near Money Mississippi. The story as detailed. The two brothers […]

Ultra-processed Foods and Cardiometabolic Health

Briefly . . .Ultraprocessed Foods and Cardiometabolic Health. Characterizing foods people are eating today . . . people in the US aged 1 year or older obtain an average of 55% of their calories from eating ultra-processed foods. Maya Vadiveloo, PhD, RD, an associate professor in the department of nutrition at the University of Rhode […]

August real average wages and nonsupervisory payrolls: some signs of flagging but no recession signal yet

– by New Deal democrat Now that we have the consumer inflation number for August, let’s take a look at real wages and income for ordinary workers. In the jobs report last Friday, we learned that both average hourly earnings and aggregate payrolls for nonsupervisory workers increased 0.4% in August. Yesterday we learned that consumer inflation […]

As consumer inflation shows more signs of re-acceleration, the Fed is being forced to pick its poison

– by New Deal democrat The Fed is really facing a no-win situation. Between the recent employment reports, the QCEW, and even this morning’s jobless claims report, the jobs market has clearly been weakening, and may be on the very cusp of contraction, implicating the Fed’s dual mandate to strive for full employment. But this morning’s […]

Scenes from the no good, rotten, terrible, and abysmal August jobs report

 – by New Deal democrat Let’s take a more in-depth look at the leading indicators for the economy in Friday’s abysmal employment report. As shown in the graph below, employment in goods has historically turned down first; indeed, in some recessions employment in services doesn’t turn negative YoY at all: Which is a shorthand way of […]