Tag Archives: Hot Topics

December real retail sales: the worst in almost two years  – by New Deal democrat Real retail sales, one of my favorite indicators, was updated this morning for December, and it was significant. It’s not just that retail sales declined -1.1% for the month both in nominal and real terms; it’s that both October and November were revised downward by -0.2% and -0.4% respectively, so the ultimate number is considerably worse than would otherwise...

“GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson Throws Ridiculous Shit Fit Over the Prospect of Losing Gas Stove,” Vanity Fair, Bess Levin I can remember when someone else said something else along the lines of: I’ll give you my gun when you pry (or take) it from my cold, dead hands.” Charleton Heston In his own unoriginal words . . . “If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands. COME AND TAKE IT!!.’” Ronny...

“Peter Drucker Sets Us Straight,” January 12, 2004 (cnn.com), Peter Drucker and Brent Schlender This is an oldie from 2004 which still has relevance to what has occurred and is occurring in the world today. Any number of times I have found myself fixing supply chain operations globally for various companies of different countries. Ninety-Four year-old guru says most people are thinking all wrong about jobs, debt, globalization, and recession....

“Social media and Damar Hamlin’s Collapse combine creating a vaccine misinformation field day“, Fortune, Ali Swenson, David Klepper, Sophia Tulp and The Associated Press “Unfounded claims about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines proliferated in the hours and days after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed during Monday’s game, revealing how pervasive vaccine misinformation remains three years after the pandemic began. Even before...

In which I quibble with Prof. Alan Blinder about the main reason for the decline in inflation since June  – by New Deal democrat Alan S. Blinder is getting traction for an opinion piece published in the WSJ concerning the big decline in inflation since June. He acknowledges that“ energy inflation played a meaningful role” but that “the rest of the stunning drop in inflation in 2022 [is] due …  What did change dramatically was the supply...

The 15th time and McCarthy’s selling of his soul to legislate in favor of radicalism was the charm. Care to fetch, Kevin? Prof. Heather presents additional history and politics along with Weldon’s commentary, and Peter Dorman piece explaining Republican politics and the actors who display little incentive to compromise. A trifecta of excellent posts. January 7, 2023, Letters from an American, Prof. Heather Cox Richardson (substack.com) Early...

December jobs report: good headlines, but deceleration continues    – by New Deal democrat If the long leading indicators all last year, and the majority of the short leading indicators from the past few months are to be believed, a recession is near. And if that is the case, we ought to see the leading elements of the jobs report begin to roll over. One of them, the average manufacturing workweek, clearly has. Arguably so has temporary...

Ukraine is getting much more advanced offensive weapons . . . This seems to mark a major shift, a commitment to helping Ukraine go on offense and win.  Open questions . . . How far will Ukraine’s partners go?  Infantry fighting vehicles today, maybe tanks, ATACMs, planes, etc. tomorrow?  How big a threat is the Republican controlled House of Representatives?  Will Ukraine be able to avoid a drawn out war of attrition?  Can it launch successful...

Tyler Cowen points us to YouChat, a new AI chatbot, that as far as I can see after studying this carefully for 15 seconds is supposed to be more up to date than the OpenAI bot and integrated with a search engine which naturally makes it the next new thing and presumably worth billions of dollars to potential investors. In the interest of being scrupulously fair, I decided to give YouChat a chance to answer the same question that OpenAI fumbled...

From the Washington Post comes this map of temperatures over much of North America, a result of the artic blast and winter storm begun today, Thursday. In the Boston area rain is expected. The temperature tonight actually is rising from from about 43 degrees F. to the low 50’s F. , to continue throughout Friday, and then eventually falls to 12 degrees F. by Saturday morning. How is your weather? ...