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

Another Sizable Oil Spill

“December 11, 2022, Letters from an American,” Prof. Heather Cox Richardson The Keystone Pipeline ruptured Wednesday night near a creek in northern Kansas, spilling what its operator, TC Energy, says is about 14,000 barrels of oil. This is equivalent to about 588,000 gallons (an Olympic swimming pool holds about 666,000 gallons). TC Energy says the […]

New Deal democrat’s Weekly Indicators for December 5 – 9

Weekly Indicators for December 5 – 9 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The most noteworthy trend over the past several months has been the almost relentless deterioration in the YoY measures of consumer spending and employment. That trend continued last week. As usual, clicking […]

Nancy Altman Gets It Right About Social Security, Then Gets It Wrong

Dale Coberly: Commentary on an article by Nancy Altman that I read yesterday: “Senator Warnock’s Re-Election Is a Victory for Social Security,” Portside, Nancy J. Altman. Nancy Altman wrote a pretty good book about Social Security [The Battle For Social Security (2005)] which I recommend. It’s readable and tells a story better than I can. […]

November producer prices: YoY measures mask recent sharp deceleration

“November producer prices: YoY measures mask recent sharp deceleration to mainly tolerable levels“  – by New Deal democrat Consumer prices for November won’t be reported until next Tuesday, but this morning we got the upstream producer prices. The news was mainly good, although not good enough to likely dissuade the Fed from its current course […]

Trump is far more dangerous than many believe

Some people believe that a DeSantis presidency would be a bigger threat to democracy than a second Trump presidency.  The thought is that DeSantis is just as authoritarian as Trump, but more competent.  I agree that DeSantis appears to be a dangerous authoritarian and he might well be more effective than Trump at undermining democratic […]

Jobless claims: troublesome trend continues, but no yellow flag yet

– by New Deal democrat Jobless claims: troublesome trend continues, but no yellow flag yet Initial jobless claims is one of the few remaining positive short leading indicators. But as I’ve noted for the past several weeks, the trend is troublesome. This week initial claims rose 4,000 to 230,000, and the 4 week moving average […]

Letters from an American, December 7, 2022

More security documents were found in trump’s possession by a trump discovery team. Maybe his mind is so fried, he is forgetting? Doubtful. trump’s lawyers insist trump still has presidential immunity even though out-of-office. A new crook emerges in Jared Kushner enlisting the aid of foreign interests to pressure another foreign country for donations to […]