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

Republicans en mass are responsible for the complete chaos of the American government

AB: J.P. McJefferson’s comment in reply to a commentary by Ken Melvin, “The Republicans.” Ken, you are so right that Republicans en masse are the responsible party for the complete chaos of the American government. This great experiment of government, with its brilliantly designed checks and balances, was prepared to handle the misguided course of […]

“We control our own destiny here, but we’re not controlling it right now”

“Southwest’s disappearing precipitation is also due to human-driven climate change,” University of Michigan News To end the Colorado River Basin’s megadrought, ‘we just need to stop climate change,’ a U-M expert says. ‘We know how to stop it and it’s not too late to stop it.’ Like much of the southwestern U.S., the Colorado River […]

In December, truck sales tanked while car sales and private jobs (per ADP) increased

 – by New Deal democrat I will write about the biggest economic release of the day, the ISM services report for December, later. In the meantime, here are two other important data releases for December, one from a private source (ADP), and the other from the BEA’s GDP updates. As an initial matter, I don’t […]

citizens are not replacing themselves

Preliminary Information . . . During the Vietnan conflict or war, I served with other nationalities who were “not” citizens. Never gave it a thought as we all worked together in the Corps. The question was why would they serve in the military of a country where they were not citizens? Upon enlistment, they were […]

“Difficult issues await Ukraine peace talks team”

It may be such that the United States may abandon Ukraine to the Russians just to get out of the situation of providing it weaponry. Ukraine is in a tough position with having to work with a US president who more likely than not favors Russia over them. Once again, the United States may just […]

Capturing Venezuela . . . An Editorial

Or maybe it is Venezuela capturing the United States? “Plot twist: Kidnapping a president” The one-handed economist So, Trump and his fellow-geniuses appear to think they’ve “hacked” the dilemma of diplomacy: If you’re annoyed with the actions of a sovereign country, then just kidnap their leader and claim that you can now run the country. […]

Real wages and consumer spending have been crucial positives; here is the most updated look

 – New Deal democrat We are still suffering the aftereffects of the government shutdown, with no data today, but a helping of mainly stale government data tomorrow and Friday. Tomorrow we get up to date private data from the ISM for services, and from ADP for private employment, along with manufacturers’ orders for October. On Friday […]

About that Venezuelan oil

There’s been a lot of crowing by Trump about how he’s seizing Venezuelan oil to hand it to American oil companies and skim profits for the United States. What oil, and how much? “According to figures widely cited throughout the media and the oil industry itself, Venezuela is sitting on around 300 billion barrels’ worth […]