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

Where we are

So Trump announced yuuge “permanent” tariffs and the stock market indices all tanked. Then Trump backpedaled on all the big tariffs except on China. Why the Trump flip-flop? Here’s Josh Marshall over at TPM: “Every sign is that it was not about the equities markets but rather the bond market, where the demand for U.S. […]

One More Con on Working People

Herr Trump, “If you are going to do it, then do it.” Quit threatening us with tariffs on the supply base that supplies us with goods. You are not going to pay for it. The government will not subsidize us. There has been nothing accomplished by all of this except for embarrassment. Do you know […]

Treasury Sec. tries to Blame Biden and Plastics Industry Warns of Danger to Competitiveness

Will the lies ever stop? Today: Ernie Tedesch Director of Economics at Yale The Budget Lab. “Real manufacturing GDP (value-added) grew 1.3% over the 4Q ending 2024, and 2% annualized over the 8Q, neither of which are recessionary. Ernie said this in response to Treasury Secretary Bessent trying to shift blame away from Trump to […]

Blockbuster Deal Will Wipe Out $30 Billion in Medical Debt. Even Backers Say It’s Not Enough

Initially presented at KFF, “Blockbuster Deal Will Wipe Out $30 Billion in Medical Debt. Even Backers Say It’s Not Enough.” Yves Smith also features the same article at Naked Capitalism as of April 8. The discussion is over medical debt. The opinion offered by Yves is such that the buying up of medical debt is […]

Health MA Plan Insurers’ big win

If you are not aware, each group bids on the area they will serve. CMS pays them a certain amount. What occurs is over-prescribing the condition of the patient and withholding care. In each case the group providing the car is paid. Both have been going for a long time. The last report detailed over […]

Bunch of Graphs and Brief Conversation About the Burden of “Income Taxes”

It is difficult to believe Americans do not have a negative opinion about the 2017 income tax cut which as expected did not pay for itself. Instead, we have trillions in deficit which we will have to make up. The benefit went to the upper 1% and you can throw in the 5% also. Similar […]

Daily T—-p tariff recession watch

As outlined in Monday’s report, NDd will cover the impact of a tariff caused recession in his daily reports. Daily T—-p tariff recession watch: no evidence of hard data deterioration to start  – by New Deal democrat Are the T—-p tariffs quickly putting the US into a recession?  As I wrote yesterday, there are two daily […]

Some Regrets and Some Lack Thereof . . .

Subscriber to Kareem’s messages and wit. The link is there if you wish to read the rest of his message. How do you justify what is occurring? We are preparing for an economic plunge by staying out of debt and having the funding to carry us through. It is not like the country did not […]

Clueless and Rich

I worked in Supply Chain a lifetime. Doing the planning, purchasing the materials, negotiating the pricing, negotiating the needs of manufacture in failing and growing economies, and being efficient in my planning of it. There were those of us doing what was necessary and those that talk about it. In this case, Krugman discusses who […]