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

Producer prices in September told a tale of goods vs. services (plus; programming note)

 – by New Deal democrat First, a scheduling note. Several data releases have been made this morning. Several more delayed releases having to do with housing *might* be released tomorrow. Alas, the very late Q3 GDP report is not going to be released at all until the end of December. There will be no releases on […]

September consumer inflation: re-accelerating trend more established, with shelter (!) being the only silver lining

– by New Deal democrat Wow, some actual new economic data on which to report – how refreshing! To be clear, the only reason this was reported is that it was necessary for the calculation of the annual cost of living increases to Social Security checks. Had these been frozen there would have been a “million […]

Why are Your Grocery Bills so High?

Some History: Angry Bear was well ahead of the issues with groceries and pricing. We did post several articles discussing the issues. One in particular article did discuss the Kroger-Albertsons partnership. The merger of Kroger and Albertsons announced a planned merger that would create a single entity controlling ~22 percent of the US grocery market. This […]

Medicaid Cuts to Hospitals

With the passage of The One Big Beautiful Bill by Republicans comes a series of problems for hospitals in the United States. Included in the hospital having issues are rural and inner-city hospitals. Many of these hospitals are caring for people with no or insufficient healthcare insurance. While Medicaid does assist many people, it does […]

New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators for September 22 – 26

NDd’s Weekly Indicators for September 22 – 26  – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. Not much change this week, but there are signs that consumer spending is beginning to cool off again. U of M adds to NDd’s comment: “Weakening consumer views of labor markets are not necessarily a […]

Initial jobless claims

 – by New Deal democrat I’m on the road today, and won’t have time to update anything until tonight. So here is what to look for in initial and continuing jobless claims. Remember that the most important figure for forecasting purposes is the YoY% change. One year ago, initial claims came in at 221,000, the […]

The AI stock price bubble and consumer spending Ponzi loop?

 – by New Deal democrat One of this things that has puzzled me for the last few months is why consumer spending has remained so strong in the face of so many headwinds in the economy, some from horrible policy coming out of Washington, some embedded in the long leading and short leading sectors.  There is […]

Jobless claims continue higher YoY trend

– by New Deal democrat We are in the part of the year when, post-Covid, likely residual seasonality has resulted in a declining trend in new jobless claims.  Not this year. On a week over week basis, initial jobless claims did decline -33,000 from last week’s outlier 264,000 to 231,000, and the four week averaged declined […]

Schumer not folding?

According to Punchbowl News, via Political Wire, Schumer sounds like he is going to hang tough in budget negotiations.  I think it is possible Democrats could win a shutdown fight, although the most knowledgeable political observers disagree.  But if this is real, not political theater for angry base voters, then the Democrats should have a […]