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

Putin Supporters In US Becoming Desperate

Putin Supporters In US Becoming Desperate  Latest reports have after Putin annexed four oblasts in Ukraine the Ukrainian military making numerous gains in several of those and simply on a major roll that seems very unlikely to be stopped or even slowed down all that much, short of Putin using nuclear weapons. First Lyman was […]

Unfinished Ford Truck Inventory Piling Up as seen from Space

Once again, automotive is building inventory dues to parts shortages. Semiconductors appear to be an issue again or the issue never went away. Much of this is due to automotive OEMs trying to drive parts cost down to the tiers. Many of them are running tight budgets due to the OEMs. They will not hold […]

August JOLTS report: the game of reverse musical chairs in the jobs market is ending

August JOLTS report: the game of reverse musical chairs in the jobs market is ending  – by New Deal democrat Since early this year I’ve been making the point that, because of the pandemic, there have been several million fewer persons looking for work, leaving a huge number of unfilled job vacancies, particularly in the […]

Selling fairytales to the credulous

One Handed Economist David Zetland reviews a review by The Economist of the book Superabundance. I admit I did not read the book or even scan it. I will do so later when I have some time to do so. The subtitle kind of gives it away as it promotes (“The Story of) Population Growth, […]

September manufacturing new orders and August construction spending both turn down

September manufacturing new orders and August construction spending both turn down  – by New Deal democrat As usual, we begin another month and another quarter with important manufacturing and construction data. The ISM manufacturing index has a very long and reliable history. Going back almost 75 years, the new orders index has always fallen below 50 […]

What News Was in My In-Box

As you can see bullet spewing weapons takes the lead this week. There are a lot of articles as taken from JAMA Network. which also has more and unlisted here. You are probably also wondering why the term “bullet spewing weapons” verbiage. There was always a discussion on semi-automatic, automatic, revolvers, etc. So, I cut […]

Who gets paid sick days?

From the Economic Policy Institute comes this piece on who gets benefits: The pandemic highlighted vast inequalities in the United States, especially in the U.S. labor market. Striking disparities were magnified in who could work from home and who had to go into work in person, who was able to keep their job and who […]

August personal income and spending: major downward revisions overwhelm modestly positive monthly gains

August personal income and spending: major downward revisions overwhelm modestly positive monthly gains  – by New Deal democrat This morning’s personal income and spending report for August was positive month over month both in nominal and real terms, but the major story was in the revisions. Personal spending is the essentially the opposite side of […]