The issue of the Tax Cuts expiring will be arriving at everyone’s doorstep come the end of 2025. They do not give an exact date so i will go with EOM December 2025. Does someone making close to or more than $400,000 annually deserve a continuation into 2026 and beyond? Not sure. I think the 1 percenter should be paying more tax. My wife and I paid some high taxes (what we would call high) when we were under $200,000 annually after deductions....
Read More »50 Years In, Most SSI Recipients Live in Poverty. That is a Policy Choice . . .
by Stephen Nuñez Roosevelt Institute Excellent piece by Stephen Nuñez on SSI and it not adjusting or growing with the changes in economic needs from 50 years ago. Indeed, for the few dollars given out, SSI appears to penalize people rather than assist them. It is ripe for a change to be more supportive of the millions of beneficiaries using it. This year marks the golden anniversary not just of Nixon’s resignation or the Happy Days premiere,...
Read More »September producer prices almost entirely benign; very little upward pressure in the pipeline
– by New Deal democrat Sometimes producer prices lead consumer prices; sometimes they don’t – but in the sense that sometimes there is no lag at all before increases show up in consumer prices. In any event, overall the message from the producer price index this morning was benign, with very little pressure “in the pipeline” for consumer inflation.To begin with, raw commodity prices (red) declined -1.2% in September, continuing their 2+ year...
Read More »Private practice docs are cutting off Medicare patients
The old model of a single doc running a practice is disappearing in America. Between the overhead and the reduced compensation, this model of health care delivery looks increasingly anachronistic.When I started as an assistant professor at a medical school in 1987, there was a lot of money sloshing around. Patients and their insurance companies would pay a premium to be seen by docs in an academic health care practice. Managed care put an end to that,...
Read More »The Case for Kamala Harris . . . The Atlantic’s endorsement
Catch some good articles in The Atlantic. Usually take this on a long flight to read. He is all set for Halloween. The Atlantic came out for Kamala Harris. Guess they do not think much of the orange one. Scare the kids on Halloween and keep the candy. This is just a partial. If you like it, I can post the rest. It is a good read. The Atlantic, for the fifth time in its 167-year history, is endorsing a candidate for president: Kamala Harris....
Read More »Housing Affordability in the U.S.
One of several articles I picked up on over the last few days. and decided to post at Angry Bear. Younger people are having to overextend themselves financially to buy housing. Not so different than a few decades ago. Except they are more in debt and more apt to go bankrupt due to a lost job, etc. Income does not appear to be keeping up with the price of housing and loan interest rates. Or perhaps, mortgage increases have outstripped income? A...
Read More »It’s harder to find work and that is unacceptable
by Claudia Sahm Stay at Home Macro Companies aren’t so worried that they’re letting a lot of people go, but they’re also not so confident that they’re hiring a lot of people. This post, an excerpt from my (Sahm) new Bloomberg Opinion piece, is very important to me. I worry most about the drop in the hiring rate now—not so much about it being recessionary but about the lost potential. Also, there’s some personal news at the end. The...
Read More »September consumer inflation: headline closing in on the Fed’s target
– by New Deal democrat Today’s CPI report for September came in almost exactly as I suggested it would in my preview yesterday. To wit: – Headline CPI continued increased 0.2% for the month, and decelerated to 2.4% YoY, its best showing since February of 2021. – On a 3 month annualized basis, prices are increasing 2.1%. On a 6 month annualized basis, they are only increasing 1.6%. – energy inflation remains non-existent, with another...
Read More »1st Look at Local Housing Markets in September
by Bill McBride Calculated Risk Newsletter NOTE: The tables for active listings, new listings and closed sales all include a comparison to September 2019 for each local market (some 2019 data is not available). This is the first look at several early reporting local markets in September. I’m tracking over 40 local housing markets in the US. Some of the 40 markets are states, and some are metropolitan areas. I’ll update these tables...
Read More »Initial jobless claims: welcome back to hurricane season
– by New Deal democrat Step away from the ledge, everybody; and pay no attention to the DOOOMers, who are surely out in force this morning: the big increase in initial claims was almost all about Hurricane Helene. By the numbers, initial claims increased 33,000 to 258,000, the highest number since August 2023. The four week moving average increased 6,250 to 231,000, the highest in a month. Continuing claims, with the usual one week delay,...
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