Since Musk is a big ketamine user and Trump is allegedly hopped up on Adderall, it’s no wonder they want the evidence of harm from drug abuse buried: “A federal study on mental health problems and substance use across the country that has been running for decades and is used by a wide range of […]

 – 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 […]

I was nosey and decided to read this article and see if I agree with it. I look to the throughput of people and machinery to gauge if the plan and people can satisfy the requirements. Plans are not ironclad and may need to be changed to meet what people can do in a setting. […]

 – 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. […]

I did a deeper investigation to get to the source of the reported loss on numerous Starlink satellites launched by Elon Musk. As reported on 3 February 2022, SpaceX launched 49 Starlink satellites, 38 of which unexpectedly deorbited. The deorbiting of the satellites was blamed on space weather. A bit of explanation on Space weather: […]

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 […]

One of my favorite aphorisms, for which I haven’t located the source, is: “There’s something about the sound of a clock striking 13 that calls into doubt everything that came before.” That came to mind when I read about RFK Jr’s “Make America Healthy Again” report: “ The Washington Post reported, “Some of the report’s […]

 – 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 […]