February housing construction rangebound, but at recessionary or near-recessionary levels  – by New Deal democrat As usual, the month’s important housing data starts out with construction.  For a quick refresher, I follow this because housing typically leads the rest of the economy by a year or more. After the very leading, but very noisy and […]

Lots of the food on your grocery shelves is imported. It has to be inspected, both for safety and to prevent the importation of agricultural pests that could destroy domestically grown crops. Fire the inspectors and you put everyone’s food future at risk. ““It’s causing problems left and right,” says one current USDA worker, who […]

– by New Deal democrat Let me start out this month with a historical review of why I have always paid so much attention to real retail sales. Going back almost 80 years, real retail sales have always turned down in advance of a recession, and they have almost always turned negative YoY simultaneously or […]

Walgreens does not set drug prices; the Insurance companies do. And there is the issue. Insurance company’s contract the PBMs to negotiate with the pharmacy chains such as Walgreens or CVS. They establish the pricing contract on covered drugs and what portion those pharmacies get reimbursed in return servicing their customers. Walgreens felt it did […]

 – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. Despite the steep sell-off and rebound in the stock market this week, the underlying “hard data” indicators about money, spending, and transportation were all steady and almost all positive. The sell-off was about sentiment due to the uncertainty brought about by the […]

Elon Musk’s DOGE Cuts Fail to Stop US Spending from Hitting Record, Newsweek. Instead for a $2 trillion increase in tax income, repeal the 2017 tax break. It will hit the upper 10% in income the hardest. Aggressive efficiency push failed to curb soaring federal spending, which hit a record $603 billion last month, according to […]

Professor Heather Cox-Richardson gives a perspective on an ugly stopgap bill passed by the Senate after the House sent it over. It was a pass it or to kill it and leave the government unfunded move by The House. So it was passed when Schumer and other Dems joined with Repubs in a 62-38 vote […]

The constant threats of tariff this and tariff that has its consequences and creates an instability to which the market reacts. Threatening our next-door neighbors with variable tariff rates does not bode well for Wall Street. Forty percent to seven percent, hmmmm . . . No recession yet. NDd has his report below. The Quick […]

Democrats agreed to invoke cloture on the continuing resolution (CR) in exchange for considering four amendments to it. Republican senators then swiftly rejected the amendments. I am not sure why Dems seem to always get sucked into deals and lose. After Republicans agreeing to review Dem amendments to the bill, eight Democrats voted with Republicans to pass […]

Apparently, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) warned her colleagues to pass the CR or else: “He will declare a state of emergency,” the senator told her colleagues, seemingly referring to a potential action President Trump might take if Congress does not pass a spending bill before the government runs out of funding midnight Friday.” LOL! “potential”? […]