Dean Baker: Don’t Buy the Scare About Social Security. “The increase in spending on Social Security from 2033 to 2034 (measured as a share of GDP) is 0.03 percentage points. That would be less than 1.0 percent of the Pentagon’s budget. This is the extent of the increased economic burden in the year the trust […]

 – by New Deal democrat Obviously this morning’s PPI number was the most important report of the day. I want to get to that later, but first let’s update the jobless claims situation. The good numbers in initial claims continued, as they declined -3,000 to 224,000. The four week moving average increased 750 to 221,750. But […]

by Paul Krugman Paul Krugman on E.J. Antoni taking over BLS if appointed by Pres, Trump. “there’s a good chance that Antoni will, in fact, take over the BLS. And the result will be the total destruction of one of the world’s greatest statistical agencies.” On Monday I wrote about Donald Trump’s disastrous press conference touting the […]

My little post on the warnings by Paul Krugman and others that the US economy might be entering a period of stagflation, was prompted by my experience as young man who finished his education, started in his career and got married in the 1970’s when “stagflation” was the buzz word and politicians kept pointing fingers […]

 – by New Deal democrat In my note yesterday about the July CPI, I noted the transition from the trend where overall inflation ex-shelter was low, and shelter was high but disinflating, to a trend where inflation ex-shelter while still low was increasing, as shelter contributed the most to disinflation. The question was, and will be […]

 – by New Deal democrat The story of this month’s CPI report is summed up in the first few graphs below: the shelter portion of the index continues its slow deceleration, while the non-shelter portion of the index appears to be in a slowly rising trend. This has resulted in headline inflation trending ever so […]

Kodak was ubiquitous when I was growing up. While I never owned a Kodak camera, I purchased miles of Kodak film, both color and black-and-white, as well as developing chemicals and printing paper. When Fujichrome first appeared, I tried it, but the pictures always turned out with a green-blue cast. Kodachrome and Ektachrome ruled. The […]

This is another way to look at the market similar t what New Deal democrat does in his daily reports. Typically this only goes to customers of an investment firm I have my retirement funds with at this time. For those concerned about a c&p, the firm suggests we pass this report along to our […]

Apparently, the guy who bankrupted casinos has called economics Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman a “deranged bum.” LOL! Trump is pissed at Krugman for criticizing Trump’s tariff policy and firing of the BLS person. “Claiming that economic data you don’t like is fraud perpetrated by a deep state conspiracy has been standard practice on the right […]

 – by New Deal democrat Despite some very soft employment and production data in the past several weeks, Wall Street has been on something of a tear, making repeated new all-time highs. Over the weekend I saw the following comment, which piqued my interest: It certainly does seem that Wall Street is dismissing the news […]