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

Initial claims jolted awake from snooze-fest by highest number in almost nine months

 – by New Deal democrat After several months of snoozing at almost identical weekly levels, initial jobless claims awoke with a bit of a jolt this week, increasing by 22,000 to 231,000, the highest weekly number since last August. The four week average unsurprisingly also rose, by 4,750, to 215,000. With the usual one week […]

An Erroneous Supply Chain Argument

“Silly” Arizona House Representative Republican Justin Wilmeth is making an argument for lower gasoline, etc. prices to Arizona. Justin traveled to California to ask for no cap on fuel prices at a California refinery (Arizona has no refinery). As if he does not have enough to do in AZ? Not sure what makes him think, […]

Continuous trump Trials, May 7th Notes, “Stormy”

“The Trial, Ho Hum” – Digby’s Hullabaloo, digbysblog.net If you haven’t been following the trial and Stormy Daniels testimony, you can catch it at Digsby’s Hullabaloo. It is kind of strange what trump says. It is too detailed for Ms. Daniels to make this up. I was reading on this yesterday elsewhere. I imagine this […]

Microsoft is investing $3.3 billion dollars to build a new data center in Racine Wisconsin

by Prof. Heather Cox-Richardson Letters from an American Pres. Joe Biden, Dem Governor Tony Evers, and Microsoft are bailing out Wisconsin from trump’s “eighth wonder of the world” lie in Racine WI with Taiwan’s Foxconn. When this was occurring, Repub. Gov. Scott Walker with Repub legislators committed to a $3.3 billion subsidy and tax incentive […]

Desperate for Workers but Dead Set Against Migrant Labor

by Paul Kiernan AB: I have written about West Virginia on several occasions. If you want some history on its politics and issue, you can go here, here, here, here, here, etc. and further back. One time, Senator Joe Manchin took to the Senate floor to preach about the death of a young and pretty […]

The Establishment Survey portion of the jobs report continued to be positive

 – by New Deal democrat AB: New Deal democrat reviews the Establishment Survey and again it differs from the Household Survey in a positive way. On Monday I wrote that the Household survey portion of the jobs report was recessionary for the second time in three months. But I pointed out that there was a […]

Q1 credit conditions showed no significant change

 – by New Deal democrat The Senior Loan Officer Survey is a long leading indicator, telling us about credit conditions that typically turn worse a year or more before the economy turns down, and improve just at the economy is ready to turn up. The big drawback of this series is that the information is […]

Inflation Is Scrambling Americans’ Perceptions of Middle-Class Life

Inflation Is Scrambling Americans’ Perceptions of Middle-Class Life, businessinsider.com, Jennifer Sor Yes, we have inflation. It is a given. Inflation is scrambling the lives of middle-class Americans. Income is not keeping up with the costs of maintaining a Middle-Class Life. I have sat here in AZ watching this play out in the nation — watching […]