Being XMilitary (Sgt. E-5 USMC) does not give me a pulpit from which to demean those who were not involved in the late sixties. I think at times those who fled the country to avoid military service were brave. More than likely, they would never be able to return to the US and they gave […]

 – by New Deal democrat Back in March I took a look at how producers and consumers reacted to periods of high political policy uncertainty, concluding that usually in the past consumers had reacted first, somewhere between almost simultaneously to with a one quarter delay, and producers reacted afterward to the downturn in demand by cutting back […]

“Which states contribute the most and least to federal revenue?” USAFacts All states—and their taxpayers—send money to federal coffers. The government distributes much of this back to states, but some receive more money than they contributed. This shapes how money flows through Social Security, Medicaid, and infrastructure projects nationwide.   Source: IRS, USASpending.gov – Get the data – […]

– by New Deal democrat Because manufacturing is much less important to the economy than in the decades before the Millennium, the economically weighted average of the ISM services index (75%) as well as manufacturing (25%), especially over a three month period, has been much more accurate since 2000. In April the important aspects of the […]

I have been in and out of Thailand over the years and either went to the Philippines next or China. An occasional stop in Jakarta was made once and awhile. Mostly, the people were friendly towards unknowing Americans. And for sure, we do not know everything. They would guide us and make sure we were […]

 –by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. Aside from the declines in the April regional Fed reports of general business conditions, there has been no significant fallout in the high frequency data from the tariff trade wars – at least, not yet. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring […]

 – by New Deal democrat I’ll keep today’s report on construction spending brief. The important part of this metric is residential construction spending, another proxy for housing. On a nominal basis, in March residential construction spending (red) declined -0.4%, while total construction spending (blue) declined -0.5%: These are hardly terrible declines. BUT, the price of […]

May 2 and Prof. Heather has an on-target piece on the direction Trump and his team are heading. Smoke and mirrors to distort reality and install a false version of reality as the truth. Create confusion to cover up. Lie and create false scenarios. Things seem to align when you wish to quell resistance and […]

Similar was a part of the Red scare of the fifties when McCarthyism was the political(?) flavor of the day. The idea was to instill hysteria promulgating over a perceived threat posed to the U.S. during the Cold War. Not so much the fear of communists today. What is occurring is a range of actions […]

My brother Mike is a retired mechanical engineer. He emailed me this morning and reminded me of a New Yorker article we had both read years ago and pointed me to a fascinating youtube video that retells the story. In a nutshell, the Citicorp building in Manhattan was a triumph of architectural innovation in its […]