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

The Big Convergence: scenes from the January employment report

– by New Deal democrat There’s no new significant news until Wednesday, so let’s catch up graphically with a few important items from Friday’s employment report for January. As I wrote then, probably the most important developments weren’t in the monthly numbers, but rather the annual revisions to both the Establishment and Household Surveys.  For […]

China’s Global Growth

Managing a supply chain for a small part of a $12 billion corporation in the US sent me to many countries in Asia. This included China. I was able to see the old aspects of it such as The Wall and the Tombs while there. I also saw the rebuild of the nation and the […]

Angry Bear Meets Up with The Bonddad Blog

Late afternoon yesterday, I found myself heading north to the other side of Phoenix to meet up with the author of The Bonddad Blog known as the New Deal democrat. The traffic was not terrible then. I planned to share a small pizza with him at Pomos pizzeria if he was up for it. Pomo […]

USPS: PRC finds Delivering for America has significant problems

Steve Hutkins giving an update of Louis DeJoy’s plan to make the USPS more efficient and profitable. PRC finds Delivering for America has significant problems, urges USPS to reconsider its plan Steve Hutkins “Save the Post Office“ Yesterday the Postal Regulatory Commission issued its Advisory Opinion on the Postal Service’s Delivering for America plan. The […]

Flaw in Musk’s Plan to Layoff Federal Workers

The Flaw in Musk’s Plan which a Military Veteran Exposed Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s ploy to strong-arm large sections of the federal workforce into taking “deferred resignations” is not going to work, wrote Michael Embrich for Rolling Stone. Federal workers were given this offer by a bizarre email titled “Fork in the Road.” An ultimatum eerily similar […]

Long leading components of GDP suggest continuing if sluggish expansion through 2025

 – by New Deal democrat As per usual, my focus in reporting on GDP is not the headline number, but the aspects which serve as leading indicators for the economy in the next few quarters. But to get it out of the way, real GDP increased at a 2.3% rate in the last quarter of […]

Resisting Rent Taking for the Better Good

Maybe you have seen Mr. Mom? There was a scene in there where Howard Humphries (President?) is doing a commercial for their product Schooner Tuna. The tuna with a heart. So, Humphries decreases the price during bad economic times. All of us here at Schooner Tuna sympathize with all of you hit so hard by […]

ISM manufacturing index in January the strongest since 2022

ISM manufacturing index in January the strongest since 2022  – by New Deal democrat Although manufacturing is of diminishing importance to the economy, (it was in deep contraction both in 2015-16 and again in 2022 without any recession), the ISM manufacturing index remains an important indicator with a 75+ year history of accurately describing that […]

“DEI” is the new “Marxism”

For the past century, Republicans have used the words “Marxist,” “Socialist” and “Communist” as epithets to refer to anything and everything they disapprove of. Now that a generation of Americans that was born after the collapse of the Soviet Union has come of age, those swear words have lost their potency. Looks like “DEI” is […]