I’ve read where Musk and Ramaswami are proposing a 75% cut in the federal workforce. That’s absurd. • National security-related agencies account for roughly 70% of the civilian workforce. The largest employers were the Department of Veterans Affairs, with 487,000 workers, followed by the armed services, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Justice Department. […]
If you have been reading New Deal democrat all along, you will remember NDd’s commentary on October 23rd (the link is below) discussing the possible stall of corporate profits. Maybe it is an easy call and maybe not. There are negatives to corporate profits stalling. Read on . . . – by New Deal democrat […]
Economist reports on what countries are less costly when driving EVs. If you go to the Economist site, you can find more countries by hovering over each colored circle. And is it always greener? Our ranking shows how costs and emissions vary. OWNERS OF ELECTRIC vehicles (EVs) have a lot to brag about. Their cars are […]
– by New Deal democrat Let me start to update this week’s data with jobless claims. Initial claims fell another -2,000 to 213,000, the lowest since last May. The four-week moving average declined -1,250 to 217,000, also a six-month low. With the usual one-week lag, continuing claims rose 9,000 to 1.907 million: As with one […]
There is an approach to cognitive psychology and modelling beliefs and forecasts which is natural for economists and very misleading. The assumptions are that we have a complete set of subjective probabilities updated with Bayes’ formula, that for any possible combination of events we have a belief about the probability that they will occur and […]
Mexico buys about $300 billion worth of goods from us every year, mostly machinery, oil, autos, food and office equipment. If Trump imposes a 25% tariff on Mexican imports, you can be sure that Mexico will retaliate, at the expense of American jobs. Meanwhile, Mexico will certainly be looking to source these goods from China […]
One of the first observed and best known errors people make when told probabilities is the Allais paradox. People put too much weight on rare extreme outcomes. This means that choices people make different choices when asked to choose between two lotteries with the same probabilities of the same outcomes depending on how they are […]
For 4 decades I have been trying to deal with, what seems to me to be a contradiction between empirical results. Kahneman and Twersky note two things. One is diagnostic expectations – people over react to useful signals of membership in a group – diagnostic symptoms. One example is that red hair is diagnostic of […]
Consumer Price Index as taken from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I have done “nothing” to alter this report. This was not a bad report. People are reacting to past issues with pricing and costs. Unless Trump is bluffing with his tariff’s threats, I would expect some major increases in prices and costs as countries […]
Made in America returns! Consumer-goods supplier Reckitt Benckiser is looking to respond faster to shifts in demand for over-the-counter pharmaceuticals by moving more of its manufacturing to the U.S., its largest market. Reckitt is investing $200 million into a factory in Wilson, N.C., that it acquired last month, part of an effort to rewire its supply chain […]