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

Gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

A bit of recent history for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Each week we send more than 50,000 complaints about financial products and services to companies for response. If another agency would be better able to assist, we’ll send it to them and let you (the consumer) know. Most companies respond within 15 days. […]

Still on a Medicare Kick and How Republicans Should Cut It’s Cost

Before you go bouncing off the walls and take a fighting stance, read what Andrew Sprung of xposfactoid has to say. Republicans Should Cut Medicare . . . Rather than Medicaid. Oh, but they are the ones making the political contributions. As soon as House Republicans’ budget resolution was published, it was clear that almost […]

Powell Howl

Late and brief thoughts on Trump’s assault on the independence of the Fed. It’s old news.now, but one way in which Trump assaulted norms, shocked investors, then flinched when asset prices moved was his discussion of firing the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. To orthodox macroeconomists and also me this is an extreme heresy. […]

Call sales and marketing stat!

“Behind closed doors, some Republicans are irked that their leaders are not doing enough explaining: One Republican with direct knowledge of the matter told POLITICO “there’s frustration for not laying out the rationale behind Medicaid cuts.” Not to worry. Here’s Duncan Black: “ . . . the rich want more money and they want you […]

Economics facts are political and hostile to the Trump Administration

Look, tariffs are just consumption taxes. American consumers pay for tariffs on Chinese goods, not the Chinese government, businesses or people. Trump pretends that exporting countries pay our tariffs. If he really believed that, he’d be happy to see Amazon post how much China is paying to get their goods into our market. But when […]

Republicans Kicking Americans Off of Medicaid

Yesterday (28th) I introduced the 1st half of Charles Gaba commentary. In case you forgot what it was, you can find it here: Twenty-one Million Americans to Lose Healthcare – Angry Bear for reread. Charles does a thorough job of discussing what Repubs are planning to do to a sizeable number of citizens. To the […]

Supply Chain and Manufacturing in the US

I will simplify this to a manner in which I have worked in for almost 50 years. The big issues around manufacturing are the Infrastructure (bldg., machinery, etc.), Overhead, and Labor. All of which is a part of the cost of manufacturing. Typically, you will find the infrastructure to be a onetime price. Overhead has […]

The art of the tariff deal

Apparently, MAGA means empty shelves and fewer jobs: “Trump’s tariffs on goods from China have disrupted trans-Pacific supply chains. U.S. officials are alarmed by companies’ dwindling inventories of critical raw-earth metals necessary for a range of economic activity; Beijing restricted the metals this month. In the three weeks since the tariffs took effect, ocean-container bookings […]

The Trump DoD is coming for your wallet

As usual, Trump is doing what he accuses others of. In this case, bleating about “waste, fraud and abuse” while removing all the safeguards against waste, fraud and abuse. “The Trump White House this month announced two new executive orders radically changing procurement procedures, especially defense procurement procedures, in ways that will unleash waste, fraud […]