– by New Deal democrat Let’s take our regular weekly look at jobless claims. Plus, this week I want to make a statement about jobless claims vs. long term unemployment. First, initial jobless claims declined -2,000 to 197,000. Aside from 2 weeks in 2018, the only time prior to the pandemic that initial claims were […]
This last three of the charts as presented by Angry Bear of the Economic Policy Institute explaining who is being paid more in the Labor Market. All three sections present an excellent review of the issues. If you missed the other two sections, you can catch up on them here: “Wage suppression in 10 charts […]
Briefly, nothing really to get excited about in this Labor Statistics Report. Of course it depends upon who is reporting it. Few changes in the Establishment Report and little change in the Household Survey Report. “The Employment Situation,” September 2026 Both nonfarm payroll employment (+29,000) and the unemployment rate (4.2 percent) changed little in September, […]
Today’s U.S. military structures itself around assumptions of short, decisive wars. Munitions stockpiles are limited. Preparation for reconstituting a highly skilled professional force is minimal. Maintenance of reserve weapons and equipment is poor. These policies trade long-term staying power for short-term lethality and presuppose that the United States can end a conflict quickly by destroying […]
“A few times I’ve noted that Trump started moving aggressively toward foreign policy and war just as his power and popularity were diminishing at home. That’s when the Greenland fury started, that’s when he went after Venezuela, that’s when, on the sugar high of Venezuela, he launched his catastrophically consequential war on Iran. No one […]
The original comment was “Partisan divide in views of press freedom appears.” Itis the lead off comment on the piece “U.S. Media Freedom: Perceptions Hit New Low” as featured on Gallup late September 2026. Even with a Tr__P in office who wates no time in threating various things in the United States, the perception of […]
Can we reverse the power shift that began four decades ago? This is the biggest question lurking behind the midterm campaigns. The preceding question by Robert Reich asks an important and deep question about power and who has it. Unless people begin to vote for others than Tr__p and those similar to Tr__p, we will […]
– by New Deal democrat One piece of economic data that got reported late last week that is worth following up on is the monthly tally of heavy truck (red) and car sales (blue, right scale): Both of these are leading indicators, but heavy truck sales are less noisy, and generally signal first (although, like […]
Too many interesting charts in this EPI piece. I am breaking it into three sections. This section discusses management and Labor. In the end Labor loses out to Management. Graph #4 details a distinct difference between the “Bottom 90% of wage earners” and the paid corporate managers and professionals. Wage earners typically has direct input […]
– by New Deal democrat We’ve entered our post-employment report lull in new economic data, so let’s take a further look at the leading indicators contained in that report. Generally speaking, this includes the more cyclical sectors like construction and manufacturing, and goods production in general; real aggregate nonsupervisory payrolls; and, during expansions leading up […]