Tag Archives: politics

Besides fishing for various in district Federal Judges to sponsor Paxton’s lawsuits against the Federal Government, there is Che Ted Cruz – a want-to-be. Student Loan Justice member Jacque Abron calling Ted Cruz out. ‘On student loans’, Letters To Editor, waxahachiesun.com, Jacque Abron at Student Loan Justice The fact that Texas legislators like Ted Cruz are opposing student loan cancellation makes no sense. The state is crushed under $141...

Weekly Indicators for February 20 – 24 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. While several of the important coincident indicators continue to hover just above neutrality, importantly neither long term Treasury yields nor corporate bond yields nor mortgage rates have made a new high in the past 4 months, and historically that has been significant. As usual, clicking over and reading will...

New home sales: a bright spot in the housing indicators  – by New Deal democrat New home sales are very noisy, and are heavily revised, which is why I pay more attention to single family housing permits. But they do have one important value: they are frequently the first housing indicator to turn at both tops and bottoms. And it increasingly looks like new home sales have already made their bottom for this cycle. In January they rose a...

I am late in posting “In-Box” due to other things going on at home. Talk of Healthcare? I fractured a tooth. It now has to be replaced with a bridge. I did not like the idea of a Sears Best drilling a hole in my jaw-bone for a stud to mount a tooth. Next up an eye operation which Medicare will cover. Then down to the VA to make contact again. This week there were a lot of interesting subjects to read. So many of them, I could double the length of...

History is replete with those times when we got it all catastrophically wrong. Including for sure those times when some deranged soul led a people into the insanity of war; but also those like The Spanish-American War, World War One, The Vietnam War, and The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars where the cues of change were missed or misread. For many of these times, ‘none so blind as those who will not see’ was a good fit. The very thought of change makes...

Strong upward revisions push real personal income to new highs, put 2 important coincident indicators firmly in expansion territory  – by New Deal democrat Almost all of the news in this morning’s release for personal income and spending for January was positive. Nominally, personal income rose +0.6% and personal spending rose 1.8%. The deflator also rose +0.6%, making real personal income close to unchanged, and real spending (after...

Perfect follow-up to Dean’s earlier commentary “Declining population and diminished national power is bad news?” which I also posted at Angry Bear. In Dean’s earlier commentary, he makes a point of declining population not being a big issue. Decreasing productivity would be a far bigger issue except it is not an issue in the US. The numbers of older people are increasing in the US. As Dean points out, “If wage growth moves in step with productivity...

The “gold standard” of jobs data shows a strong rebound in Q3 2022  – by New Deal democrat The preliminary estimate for the Q3 2022 QCEW was released yesterday. Although the monthly nonfarm payrolls report gets all the glory, it is only a survey. The QCEW is an actual census of the roughly 95% of all businesses paying unemployment insurance. It is reported with about a 6 month delay, and is not seasonally adjusted. The bottom line is while...

The recent train derailment in Ohio of a Norfolk Southern train has me thinking. As this accident relates to our social order, there is just so many paths, perspectives and questions one can dive into. I almost could not decide what direction to address it all from. We have the capitalism/free market angle. Is this disaster an example of market failure? Is this government failure? Does this disprove the “too much government” argument? You know,...

The long leading forecast through year end 2023 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat Normally in late January I update my top-line long leading forecast for the entire year. A little late this year, it is now up at Seeking Alpha. If you follow my updates on the leading indicators, the result isn’t very surprising. The twist is that recessions are almost always much shorter than expansions, so the long leading indicators turn up on a...