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

New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators March 3 -7 2025

 – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. The malign and moronic “policies” of the 2nd T—-p Administration so far have driven Economic Policy Uncertain to all time record highs: But despite that, the rumblings under the surface of the data have been quite minor so far. There are changes in […]

DOGE for thee, but not for me

Trump was only supposed to hurt “those people”: “Jennifer Piggott proudly hung a red-and-blue Trump campaign flag outside her one-story home during the November election race. Now, after she was abruptly fired from her civil service job, her days of supporting the president are over. “Piggott is among more than 125 people dismissed in February […]

Why Healthcare Costs So Much . . .

Having been a part of supply chain for decades, it was left to me to understand more than distribution. knowing the actual cost provides a foundation to negotiate. I would cost-model components right down to the materials. Having such detail and understanding the other costs allows you to have a basis to negotiate. And yes, […]

February jobs report: weak employment gains

but some 3+ year highs in unemployment metrics  – by New Deal democrat My question over the past year has been whether “decleration” would turn into “deterioration.” For a “soft landing,” deceleration would need to end, and the numbers stabilize, vs. continuing to deteriorate towards an actual downturn.  The verdict this month was mixed. On the […]

Medicaid Cuts as Promoted by WSJ

As a subscriber to xpostfactoid, I have access to some excellent commentary by Andrew Spung. This is not a person I would argue with about the ACA, Medicare or Medicaid, etc. Anyway, the WSJ has an article touting Medicaid cuts which did catch his attention and is the basis for his commentary. The link is […]

Jobless claims decline back into neutral territory

Jobless claims decline back into neutral territory  – by New Deal democrat After last week’s big jump, this week initial jobless claims declined -21,000 to 221,000. The four-week moving average increased 250 to 224,250. With the typical one-week delay, continuing claims rose 42,000 to 1.897 million: On the more important YoY basis for forecasting purposes, […]

More Slow Growth

Economically weighted ISM indexes for February indicate continued slow growth  – by New Deal democrat Because manufacturing is now of much less importance to the economy than in the decades before the Millennium, I now use a weighted average of the ISM services index (75%) as well as manufacturing (25%) as the primary forecasting tool. […]

Trump’s Stock Market’s Bump Appears to be Over

The threats of tariffs and trade wars by Trump appears to have had an impact on the US economy. Moreso than the countries he has been threatening. If they call his bluff, the US population will pay for his malfeasance. Maybe this is what Trump wanted? As reported at Quartz “The stock market’s Trump bump […]

Important changes in trend in the bond and stock markets, and a note on GDP estimates as well

– by New Deal democrat There’s no important economic data today, so this is a good time to write about several important developments in the stock and bond markets. First of all, as many of you may already know, a portion of the US Treasury yield curve, between the 10 year and 3 month Treasuries, re-inverted […]