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

Important changes in trend in the bond and stock markets, and a note on GDP estimates as well

– by New Deal democrat There’s no important economic data today, so this is a good time to write about several important developments in the stock and bond markets. First of all, as many of you may already know, a portion of the US Treasury yield curve, between the 10 year and 3 month Treasuries, re-inverted […]

New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators for February 24 – 28

– by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. Last week I wrote that exogenous factors – like political decisions – could have nearly simultaneous effects across all timeframes of indicators. In other words, the long and short leading indicators as well as the coincident indicators, could all react at the […]

Steel and Aluminum Tariffs

Some Background on Molds Building molding tools is a one-off event. You spend the $tens of thousands and the tool lasts a certain amount of throughput dependent upon material molded (some being more difficult or corrosive) and care. The numbers of cavities will impact costs. Too many and it increases cost of the tool and […]

Time for A Few Small Repairs?

Citigroup credited a client’s account with $81tn when it meant to send only $280, an error that could hinder the bank’s attempt to persuade regulators that it has fixed long-standing operational issues. Yes, that is 81 trillion U.S. Dollars, which about says it all. The good news for Citi is that–this time–they managed to get […]

DOGE is shooting blanks

This appears to be a new and unfamiliar use of the word “efficiency”: “The Department of Government Efficiency run by Elon Musk last week published an initial list of 1,125 contracts that it terminated in recent weeks across the federal government. Data published on DOGE’s “Wall of Receipts” shows that more than one-third of the […]

Did COVID-19 begin with raccoon dogs?

The weight of evidence—scientific and epidemiological—points to a zoonotic origin for SARS-CoV-2 with the epicenter at the Huanan wet market in Wuhan, China. Although the virus is endemic in bats, there’s little evidence for a direct jump of the virus from bats to humans in Wuhan. The most parsimonious hypothesis is that some other mammal […]

DOGE attacks national security

Both my dad and my father-in-law worked throughout their post-military careers at Y-12 in Oak Ridge. During the war, Y-12 was the site of uranium enrichment by the calutrons (K-25 was the gaseous diffusion plan, enrichment by gas chromatography). Having grown up in Oak Ridge, I’m quite familiar with its role in national security, unlike […]

Declining Housing Construction

Housing construction declines further into recessionary territory  – by New Deal democrat As promised, economic data resumed this morning, and with it my extended posts. First, the usual point that housing is a very important and leading sector of the economy, typically turning down more than a year before a recession begins. And with higher […]

Industrial Policy

Fairly new article on international manufacturing. I broke it down, added information plus another chart, and did some editing. It really was a good article on manufacturing. I just made it better based on my fifty years in supply chain and throughput. Industrial Policy is Back. Is That a Good Thing? What Are the Issues? […]