The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, keeping its benchmark range at 4.25% to 4.5%. In his remarks, Fed Chair Jerome Powell explained the committee’s view that “the economy is in a solid position.” However, growth has moderated, he said, and consumer spending has slowed in the first half of the year. What’s […]
Trump has trumpeted his EU fossil fuel deal to sell $250bn worth of US oil, natural gas and nuclear technologies for each of the next three years. Like all things Trump, it’s all bluster. “Analysts were puzzled by a target that would involve decisions by shareholder-owned companies in a continent also trying to decarbonise its […]
– by New Deal democrat Yesterday’s JOLTS survey for June continued to be consistent with a “soft landing” scenario. This is good news, particularly on a relative basis, since the actions of the new Administration, especially on trade, have exacerbated the fear that this might transform into a “hard” landing, a/k/a a recession. As a quick […]
One of the icons of right-wing fairytale economics is the Laffer Curve. It purported to show that if taxes were raised too high, the tax income would fall. Casual inspection revealed that there were no labels on the ordinate or abscissa, so it was impossible to say at what level of taxation “too high” occurred. […]
Musk’s tunnel drilling company, The Boring Company, has announced a privately funded plan to build a 10-mile underground people-mover connecting the convention center and downtown to the airport. Take that to the bank? Not so fast. “Musk also claimed during the first Trump administration that The Boring Company had received “verbal govt approval” to dig […]
– by New Deal democrat This morning’s repeat home sales reports from the FHFA and S&P Case Shiller were not good news for sellers – but very good news for future consumer inflation readings. On a seasonally adjusted basis, in the three month average through May, the Case-Shiller national index (light blue in the graphs below) declined […]
I see where Russia is turning to cryptocurrency to avoid sanctions. Seems like there’s a new cryptocurrency every day. Scam? Ponzi scheme? Part of your retirement portfolio? To answer this question for myself, I have to compare crypto to its alternatives. I’ll focus on Bitcoin because it’s been around awhile and seems to have a […]
– by New Deal democrat Once again there is no significant economic news on a Monday, so let’s take a look at the important data I am especially interested in later this week. Consumption leads employment, and since consumption is about 70% of the US economy, any downturn in consumption is important, as it directly affects […]
Briefly: Political polling of what the population in the United States could be thinking today? I know what I would br thinking of thinking of besides Tr__p’s first six months. Early on, I believe Tr__p was polling lower than other presidents in office for six months. Given the state of the economy as compared to […]
Climate change is already doing a lot of harm. One of the harms is the drying of land masses. The people who live on these land masses depend on fresh water not only to drink but to grow crops for food. As surface water disappears, humanity is dipping into the corpus of its geological endowment, […]