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

Newscast Discussing Trump and Iran

Kerry told MS NOW’s Jen Psaki on “The Briefing” that the president’s Truth Social posts –– an expletive-laden post on Sunday and a Tuesday threat that Iran’s “whole civilization will die” –– left him “as shocked as I’ve been by anything that I have seen or read by this administration, in the first administration and now in the second.” […]

disenfranchising Black voters

“Last week in a Senate confirmation hearing, four Trump judicial nominees, one each from Florida and Ohio, and two from Texas, declined to agree with Delaware Democratic Senator Chris Coons that Trump, having already served two terms in office, was ineligible to be elected to a third term. That’s four people who believe they are qualified to […]

February and March construction spending show two leading sectors in decline; only AI spending holding up the economy

 – by New Deal democrat Tomorrow, Angy Bear will have New Deal democrat’s April jobs report up. I believe you will find it somewhat different than what others are posting. ~~~~ It has become increasingly likely that the Boom (or maybe Bubble) in spending on the construction and operation of AI data centers may be […]

Jobless claims, the most positive data of all, continues to augur for lower unemployment

 – by New Deal democrat The most positive metric in all of economic metric-dom continues to be very positive. Initial jobless claims rose 10,000 to 200,000 last week, still among the lowest readings over the entire past 50+ years. The four week moving average declined -4,250 to 203,250, also among the lowest in the past […]

Some Reads that Show-Up in My In-box from Time to Time

I believe you can access the Reads at these sites. I subscribe to them. They are rather informative and offer up various views. I sometimes use them at Angry Bear. Just something different than my boring you with various writings, my interpretation, etc. “Signs of Stability, Signs of Strain,” Claudia Sahm: April’s Jobs Day is […]

The positive, noisy monthly March new home sales report masks underlying trend weakness

– by New Deal democrat New home sales, which were finally updated yesterday for March (and so still are about three weeks behind their regular schedule now 6 months after the end of the government shutdown!) are perhaps the most leading of all indicators for housing, itself a long leading indicator. In fact, they are […]

This is Why Congress Should Enjoy the Same Bennies as Labor

Secretary Rollins was trying to convince Americans they could survive on $3 a meal, which included “a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli [and] a corn tortilla.” AB: I do not know about you, that would be a tough go for me. Think about a McDonald’s burger and fries for $3? Such meals are […]

Economically weighted ISM services + manufacturing indexes strongly stagflationary

– by New Deal democrat We got a bunch of data this morning. I’ll discuss the JOLTS employment data from last month, and the ISM services report today. Since new home sales are a long leading indicator, I think I can safely wait to discuss that report tomorrow. Let me start with the ISM services report […]

Population Decline

This decrease has been a long time coming. In 2006. population growth was at breakeven. I documented this in “population is growing at the rate of almost 1 percent per year, Angry Bear. Joel Garreau wrote the article in Smithsonian “300 Million and Counting” and It was in 2006 when the United States was at […]