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

Immigration and Deportation

The focus of this and past presidencies has been on immigration legal and illegal. The influx of unestablished legal immigrants has been higher than normal. Past presidents have talked to it and taken action. It was not till this presidency that a more personal look by this president has taken the forefront. He deficiently does […]

Various Reads Out of My In-Box

Each day, I am inundated with articles coming from various locations. Some are informative, some are informative and others not so. These make for a good Sunday review if you have some time to do so. They cover a broad span of topics. At each site you may find other articles which may be of […]

Housing construction continues to look recessionary

– by New Deal democrat As we get towards the end of the month, the data from the important leading housing sector begins to be reported. This morning’s report on housing permits, starts, and construction continues the trend that has been in place for several years. For the month, permits (gold in the graph below) […]

Expectations of Workers and Firms

Brief Piece by EPI with an introduction . . . In “How will Trumponomics work out?” the author contends Trump will be disappointed in the results of his planned tariffs. Just watching this from the sidelines. The tariffs appear to change weekly and take on the form of various percentage rates, weeks, and months at […]

The Future of the Trump Economy

I pulled this segment from a much longer commentary on PIIE. It was too long to post on Angry Bear. As it is, this segment is longer than what I wanted to post. A key to the commentary at PIIE by Oliver Blanchard is it was written in November 2024.The nation and Tr__p administration supported […]

Topline monthly increase in retail sales betrays weak underlying trend

 – by New Deal democrat Consumption leads employment, and retail sales are the most timely monthly indicator of consumption. Indeed, population-adjusted real retail sales in the past have tended to turn negative one year or more before a recession has begun. In June, nominally retail sales rose a strong 0.6%. But because consumer prices rose 0.3%, […]

Threatening the Fed

We made it out of a pandemic, a potential recession, and other issues which threatened the nation with Fed Chief/Chair Jerome Powell guiding the nation’s financial stability. The Fed did implement several policies to stabilize the financial system and support the flow of credit to households, businesses, and state and local governments at the onset […]

Jobless claims: the brightest spot in the entire economy right now

 – by New Deal democrat Probably the brightest spot in the entire economy right now is initial jobless claims. Contrary to the general theme of deceleration which has been the case for several years now, initial claims appear to be breaking trend in the positive direction. Specifically, initial claims declined -7,000 last week to 221,000, their […]