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

AZ – Best Build to Rent Single Family Housing Market

This is a brief introduction to the housing state of affairs in Arizona. It is building up quickly. Builders, declarants, and corporate HOAs have a great swath of control over what is occurring. None of which has controlling input from residents. What I am also seeing in the Planning and Zoning Commissions is ignorance on […]

Colorado crop fraud

Farming is a risky business. Always has been. A federal program to keep farmers in business during droughts seems like a good idea to me. Sadly, it’s also a target for fraud: “On a normal day, the promising storms produced snow or rain that would fall onto a system of official weather stations at airstrips […]

Leading Indicators from Friday’s jobs report

 – by New Deal democrat There’s no big economic news today or tomorrow, so let’s take a more detailed look at the leading indicators from Friday’s jobs report. It turns out, the news wasn’t nearly as bad as the headline employment number. Let’s start with the negative stuff. The simple story is, manufacturing is in a […]

Making Trump Tax Cuts Permanent has Medicaid the Top Target for Cuts

I did some rewriting on this particular commentary and added two charts from another commentary (at the bottom). The point being to give graphical depiction of the impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and who it benefited the most. You can see (for whatever reason) why the Republican Party is pushing for […]

New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators for September 2 – 6 2024

 – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. In the wake of yesterday’s weak jobs report, bond yields and mortgage rates declined to 12 months+ lows, commodities declined across the board, stocks sold off sharply, and the 10 years to 2-year Treasury spread un-inverted. That’s bad news and good news. […]

Empty Promises, Big Paydays: Kroger and Albertsons CEOs Fail to Justify Largest Supermarket Merger in History

by American Economic Liberties Project Looks like things are being said that are not legally enforceable. Let me see . . . Deleted emails, Albertson’s CEO can walk away with a $40-something million bonus if he can close the deal, a special dividend to private equity investors worth $4 billion and paid with borrowed money, […]

FTC and grocery giants debate who real competitors are

More on the FTC investigating Albertsons and Kroger as to whether they are truly competitors. The issue being how much of the market-controlled now by each and what would result after Kroger acquires Albertsons. Both the FTC and Unions argue “FTC argues different stores have different use cases. FTC lead attorney Susan Musser noted “you […]

Labor Market Conditions – Sahm

Yes, I get occasional commentaries from this substack. No, I am not going to post it all here. Follow the link after you read what I did post of Claudia Sahm’s here. Labor market conditions. – by Claudia Sahm Tomorrow (9/6) is the jobs report for August 2024. There is intense attention for any clues […]