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

Industrial and manufacturing production improve for the month, but 16+ month fading trend continues

Originally Published at The Bonddad Blog Industrial production is an indicator that has faded somewhat in importance in the modern era since China’s accession to normal trading status in 2000. Before that, a downturn in production was an excellent coincident indicator for a general downturn in the economy. Since then there have been several downturns, […]

Fixing Social Security

If nothing is done, the Social Security Trust Fund is currently projected to run out in about 2033. At that point, projected benefits will fall by about 20%. The Boston Globe has an opinion piece about the coming Social Security crisis/crunch. It talks about how Canada deals with the problem. I have a subscription and […]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s family finds fault with an award given in her name to Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch

There has to be more deserving unrecognized people worthy of recognition running around today? Why would the Opperman Foundation believe Musk and Murdoch are deserving of such an award given in Justice Ruth Ginsburg’s name? CNN, Tierney Sneed The family of the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wants her name pulled off an award after the […]

Good news and bad news Thursday: the good news is jobless claims . . .

 Bonddad Blog – by New Deal democrat This morning brought us both good and bad economic news. The good news was that initial jobless claims continue very low, at 209,000, down -1,000 from last week, while the four week average declined -500 to 208,000. Even better, after major downward revisions, continuing claims rose 17,000 to 1.811 […]

High school financial literacy?

I thought this might make a fun follow-up on my post on 8th grade algebra. Over at jabberwocking.com, Kevin Drum discusses a proposal to make a semester of financial literacy a high school graduation requirement. He feels that this would fill a much-needed gap: “There are no long-term tests of financial literacy that I can […]

Gaza on the Brink of Famine

The Atlantic, Alan Taylor The United Nations is warning that famine in Gaza is “almost inevitable.” Palestinians living in Gaza are struggling with extreme shortages of food, clean water, and medicine. Several countries, including Jordan, France, Egypt, the U.S., the United Arab Emirates, and now Germany, are coordinating airdrops of humanitarian aid to help alleviate […]

King Canute economics comes to Massachusetts

According to legend, King Canute tried to order the tide not to come in. Needless to say, he failed, divine rights of kings nonwithstanding. Back when we lived in North Carolina, we visited the Outer Banks a few times. There were many expensive homes on the shoreline. These were often casualties of hurricanes that would […]

One Place, AB is Happy Not to be Living in or Near

The actions of the state leaders is a blight on the rest of the state. Florida is swamped by disease outbreaks as quackery replaces science, The Guardian. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Guardian Summary: Shortly before Joseph Ladapo became Florida’s surgeon general in 2022, the New Yorker ran a short column welcoming the vaccine-skeptic doctor to his new […]

The most potent labor market indicator of all is still strongly positive

The Bonddad Blog  – by New Deal democrat On Monday I examined some series from last Friday’s Household survey in the jobs report, highlighting that they more frequently than not indicated a recession was near or underway. But I concluded by noting that this survey has historically been noisy, and I thought it would be […]

Yesterday, Robert Hur Testified to the House Judiciary Committee

For once and rather than say, Dems blew it again with Republicans; Dems demonstrated they can be crafty too! House Democrats and Joe Biden turned the tables on Republicans and Robert Hur. Professor Heather writes Letters from an American and gives us the rundown on what took place. New York Times, Washington Post, live news […]