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

Economically weighted ISM averages continued slow deceleration in April despite rebound in Services

– by New Deal democrat Because manufacturing is much less important to the economy than in the decades before the Millennium, the economically weighted average of the ISM services index (75%) as well as manufacturing (25%), especially over a three month period, has been much more accurate since 2000. In April the important aspects of the […]

No High Speed Trains in America Yet

Shanghai, China uses Electromagnetic Suspension (EMS) for levitation and propulsion. EMS uses the attractive force between electromagnets on the vehicle and a conductive track on the guideway to levitate the train and maintain a constant gap while travelling at high speed. The train is equipped with powerful electromagnets. I pulled this picture of a train […]

New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators for April 28 – May 2

 –by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. Aside from the declines in the April regional Fed reports of general business conditions, there has been no significant fallout in the high frequency data from the tariff trade wars – at least, not yet. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring […]

March construction spending: yet more incipient tariff effects

 – by New Deal democrat I’ll keep today’s report on construction spending brief. The important part of this metric is residential construction spending, another proxy for housing. On a nominal basis, in March residential construction spending (red) declined -0.4%, while total construction spending (blue) declined -0.5%: These are hardly terrible declines. BUT, the price of […]

Three-year medical school?

When I started teaching medical students, our MD curriculum was four years. The entire first two years were pre-clinical. Students advanced to clinical clerkships at the beginning of their third year. For seven years, I was course director for a 2.5 trimester, 95 lecture course called “Medical Biochemistry.” When I retired last July, pre-clinical training […]

An Administration Deciding from the Start to Portray President Donald Trump . . .

May 2 and Prof. Heather has an on-target piece on the direction Trump and his team are heading. Smoke and mirrors to distort reality and install a false version of reality as the truth. Create confusion to cover up. Lie and create false scenarios. Things seem to align when you wish to quell resistance and […]

It’s the Spending Stupid

Trade Balances: It’s the Spending, Stupid by Steve Roth Wealth Economics This post is dedicated to my sister, who (bless her heart) really follows the financial press and etc. and tries to understand things. She called me up kind of flummoxed by all this tariff/trade talk recently, and now IMO has a super-good basic understand […]

SNAP Funding Cuts Would Harm Children and the Economy

The Snap cuts coming from a rather large president who over eats, just seems wrong to me. But, with this Snidely Whiplash as the President, one can be certain cuts will occur where they should not occur. My apology to Snidely, I meant Trump. Right now? Pres. Trump is thinking of cutting back on the […]