Weekly Indicators for September 12 – 16 at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Gas prices have continued to decline, with almost the entire Ukraine war spike gone. Meanwhile Tuesday’s core CPI reading sent the bond market into a tizzy, with interest rates going back up to their highs. The decline in gas prices is good news for the immediate short term. But the increase in interest rates...
Read More »Bullying
Sen. Lindsey Graham, SC has been busy as a cat trying to cover up his saying, “And I’ll say this: If there is a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information after the Clinton debacle … there will be riots in the street,” comment by saying several different things about what he was trying to say, when what he was really trying to do was bully the Justice Dept, the Democratic Party, the President, the Speaker of the House, the...
Read More »Banking for the People
“Banking for the People: Lessons from California on the Failures of the Banking Status Quo,” Roosevelt Institute, Emily DeVito Introduction The current banking system in the United States and its fine and fee-heavy profit model is a barrier to economic entry and financial security for millions of individuals and families. Especially a barrier for those who are Black, brown, and/or low-income. In addition to being grossly unfair, our status quo...
Read More »Ross Douthat tries to gloss DeSantis’ abusive treatment of migrants. It goes about as well as you would expect.
DeSantis’ decision to send migrants to Martha’s Vineyard on false pretenses was clearly repugnant. In fact, it seems to have been even worse than it appears: the organizers apparently tried to trick the migrants into reporting their whereabouts to the wrong authorities, which would have jeopardized their status. But over on twitter, Ross Douthat tries to put a bit of lipstick on the pig: This was always the obvious point of the stunt, not to...
Read More »US Public Opinion on Income redistribution
I am going to give a hostage to fortune. I am going to guess that the preferred policy supported by a majority of US respondents on questions about redistribution of income is that which would directly serve the narrow short term economic interests of a (probably different but overlapping) majority of US respondents. I am guessing that the majority view is that view which would be the majority view if everyone were selfish (and out and proud...
Read More »A Student Loan Story as Told by Kate
This is one of Alan Collinge’s associates who comment on many of his posts. This also reflects a point I bought up a while back on student loan debt. The size of the loan was large and probably could have been handled. The issue is not so much the loan as it is the interest fees, interest upon interest, paying back the interest first, etc. A $10,000 forgiveness will go to the interest first on the student loan debt and never touch the principal....
Read More »August industrial production declines; overall decelerating trend consistent with recession in 2023
August industrial production declines; overall decelerating trend consistent with recession in 2023 – by New Deal democrat Finishing today’s data dump, industrial production, the King of Coincident Indicators, declined -0.2% in August, while manufacturing production increased 0.1%. July’s sharp gains in both were revised slightly (-0.1%) downward: While July remains the high water mark for overall production, manufacturing has not made a...
Read More »A few observations on freedom
Guest Post by Infidel as posted from his Blog of the same name. Intro . . . In the real world, which contains many individuals interacting within a society, overall freedom is maximized when the total ability of all individuals to do whatever they want is maximized. In practice, achieving this involves a vast number of compromises and trade-offs, because there are so many cases where the wants of one person clash with the wants of another...
Read More »Positive real retail sales in August, but YoY flatness continues
Positive real retail sales in August, but YoY flatness continues – by New Deal democrat Retail sales, probably my favorite monthly economic datapoint, increased 0.3% in August. Since consumer prices rose 0.1%, real retail sales rose 0.2%: That’s certainly good news. Now here’s the bad news: July’s retail sales were revised downward by -0.4%, so that real retail sales, reported last month as +0.1%, are now shown down by a little less than...
Read More »Improvement in initial jobless claims continues
I have been following New Deal democrat for a long time now. What NDd is reporting in this post is a big deal going into November’s Elections. In spite of all the negativism being reported by political interests, the economy is still moving forward. People are still working. I keep having to remind people about what 2008 was about. The last two years could have been far worse. run75441 Improvement in initial jobless claims continues – by...
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