At least people talking around the internet do not have to guess what their senator thinks about Medicaid healthcare. One was bold enough and not afraid of elections to say it out in the open. ” for Heaven Sakes” is the right answer. Giving up your healthcare and joining them in not accepting government sponsored […]

 – by New Deal democrat We finish the month of May with the very important personal income and spending for April, which gives us a thorough look at the consumer. In this case it is particularly complicated by the fact that “Liberation Day” tariffs and various further retaliatory increases were imposed at various times during the […]

 – by New Deal democrat Let me start this post by picking up where I left off yesterday. In yesterday’s post I suggested that an absolute YoY decline in intermodal rail freight might well show up in this morning’s report from the AAR. And as the below chart shows, that’s exactly what happened, with intermodal traffic […]

Interesting issues occurring on May 28th which ended up in the courts. Also, people are finding ways to make money as Trump plays with on-again and off-again tariffs. As you probably know, the ruling on tariffs by the U.S. Court of International Trade was set aside by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. […]

So Elon is headed back to the private sector after a star turn as chainsaw-in-chief and co-president. How did that work out, anyway? “Musk’s original goal was $2 trillion in annual savings, downsized several times to the range of $500 billion. DOGE currently claims $175 billion in savings. But the House bill would formalize barely […]

 – by New Deal democrat One of the main reasons I include the last two years when I write about initial and continued jobless claims is that a distinct unresolved post-pandemic seasonality has developed. Even after seasonal adjustment, claims have tended to rise in the late spring towards the summer, and then decline beginning in late […]

 – by New Deal democrat There’s no significant new economic data today, so let’s take an updated look at the downstream effects on the supply chain and retail sales so far from T—-p’s tariffs. To begin with, at least some of the tariffs are indeed in effect. Here is a graph from Ben Casselman of The […]

First, my opinion. If anybody thinks this is not holding Trade with the US hostage until the other country concedes, they are crazy. Trump is obviously flexing our muscle to gain political advantage and a venue in which to brag. The only thing a tariff will do is protect an industry for a short period […]

The latest meme around the Trump tariffs is TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out. Savvy traders are buying on the TACO tariff dips and selling on the TACO caves. And those caves are popular. “Yesterday, the Conference Board reported that in May consumer confidence surged by 12.3, the largest monthly increase in four years. Bloomberg said […]

Change in Household Income Resulting from the Republican and Trumps extension of the 2017 Tax Bill or the TCJA Daniel Becker had this bar chart on Facebook which details how the tax break will play out. Really great for the 1 tenth of 1 percenters. Good for the top 1 percenters and the upper five […]