As reported at Common Dreams by Jake Johnson, “The Pentagon reportedly wants Congress to approve more than $200 billion in supplemental funding for US President Donald Trump’s unauthorized and deeply unpopular war on Iran as the administration weighs deploying thousands of additional troops to the Middle East, signaling a drawn-out conflict and a possible ground invasion.” AB: […]
While crowing about how it’s sinking the Iranian economy, the Trump Administration is literally keeping it afloat. “In the coming days, we may unsanction the Iranian oil that’s on the water,” Bessent said on Fox Business Thursday. The US is already allowing Iranian oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, and that nation has […]
– by New Deal democrat This week, in addition to my usual look at jobless claims, especially in view of my post earlier this week breaking down the components of aggregate nonsupervisory payrolls, I want to compare them with several other indicators of increased joblessness in terms of their expansion and pre-recession dynamics. First, let’s look […]
What Andrew Sprung is discussing is the impact of Republicans and Trumps’ change to the funding for ACA healthcare. To explain premium tax credit improvements expired at the end of 2025, causing 2026 premiums to spike for all marketplace enrollees, whether or not they receive premium tax credits. The expiration of the enhanced tax subsidies […]
If the Strait stays closed, look out above. – Paul Krugman March 13, 2026 Source: FRED I did not have time yesterday to do a full post for today, but wanted to say something I suspect many economists are thinking, but which I haven’t seen clearly expressed: the world economy’s very robustness to oil price […]
– by New Deal democrat Even before the Iran war started almost three weeks ago, the US economy was in something of a stagflationary scenario. Let’s take a look at how the war, and in particular the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, has impacted that, starting with the direct effects and then following the […]
I posted earlier about my interest in whether higher oil prices would favor freight trains over trucks. Now, not only is the Trump administration driving up fuel prices, it’s also cutting truck drivers. “About 200,000 immigrant truck drivers – virtually all of them in the U.S. legally – will begin losing their commercial driver’s licenses […]
When I was working for one international company, we booked a train trip from Shanghai to Hangzhou. It was not the fastest train (G). It was a slightly slower train (D). Pleasant ride. No clicky-clack and roomy seats, You were not shoehorned into an area or seat. You could recline the seat. Distance was ~125 […]
– by New Deal democrat There’s no major economic news today, so let me take this opportunity in view of last week’s update to the CPI, to update one of my favorite labor market indicators: real aggregate nonsupervisory payrolls. As a brief refresher, over the past 60 years this has been a very good and reliable […]
For the past couple of decades, whenever oil prices spiked, I wondered if this would be good news for railroads. Trains in Europe are still very much a thing, and I’ve traveled by train in England, France, Germany and Spain. There are rail connections from Providence to Boston and to New York City. Of particular […]