Here’s a picture of manufacturing activity: employment, hours worked, production, and new orders:
Figure 1: Total employment in manufacturing (blue), manufacturing production (black), aggregate hours worked in manufacturing (production and non-supervisory workers) (green), real new orders 3 month centered moving average (red), all in logs 2021M11=0. New orders deflated by core PPI for finished goods. Source: BLS, Federal Reserve via FRED, BLS, Census via FRED.
Employment and hours growth might seem pretty anemic given the boom in the economy — but it’s important to remember that trend decline in the two series is 1.2% and 1.4% respectively since 2000.
The short term outlook is improving, even though the manufacturing sector is still shrinking, according to the September PMI (reading = 49).
The right wing nutjobs have moved from protecting your right to own deadly weapons of war to protecting your Constitutional right to drive a polluting car!
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/car-wars-coming-for-your-car/
Not before time, some drivers are beginning to realize that the war against cars is neither an abstraction nor some distant conflict that they can safely avoid — nor something they can avoid by switching to electric vehicles (EVs). As conventional cars are forced off the roads, EVs will be next.
One would have thought the author of this trash was CoRev – but it was actually Andrew Stuttaford.
Po!itics, you say?
Here is some speculation (based on twit posts from people who aren’t in Congress, so weigh accordingly) trying to explain what happened on the way to McCarthy being tossed out of his job:
https://braddelong.substack.com/p/what-the-hell-happened-in-the-us?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
Central to this speculation is that McCarthy thought Democrats would save him in a couple of ways, neither of which they did.
First, the continuing resolution now funding government operations, but not assistance to Ukraine, wasn’t meant to pass Congress. McCarthy’s reputed intention was for Democrats to reject the CR over Ukraine and allow a partial shutdown, so that Republicans could claim “Democrats care more about Ukraine than about their own constituents.” Democrats didn’t behave as McCarthy expected, government continues to operate and right-wing crazies blamed him for cooperating with Democrats even though cooperation was not his goal.
The other way in which McCarthy is said to have expected Democrats to save him was either to vote against the motion to vacate the speakership, or to abstain. The idea is that McCarthy, either implicitly or explicitly, told Democrats, “Trust me; I’m lying to my party’s caucus, but not to you” on several issues of importance to Democrats. Individual Democrats apparently had made noises about supporting McCarthy, but in the end all voted in favor of sinking him. So when McCarthy blamed Democrats for his decathedration, it’s because he had actually expected them to save his job. This expectation was based on the trust that had grown up between Democrats and McCarthy as McCarthy moved to impeach Biden, reneged on a budget deal, investigated Hunter Biden, bowed to Trump and so on.
Seems like magical thinking, but McCarthy is a member of the GOP in the 21st Century, so…
Claudia!
This year’s Laureate in the Economic Sciences, Claudia Goldin, provided the first comprehensive account of women’s earnings and labour market participation through the centuries. Her research reveals the causes of change, as well as the main sources of the remaining gender gap.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2023/press-release/
Speaking of Claudia Golden, the next time someone tries to tell you thar economists don’t care about labor issues or income issues, you can understand how wrong that claim is. The economics profession has paid enough attention to Golden’s work over the decades that she could be nominated for the Prize.
And, as NPR cheekily noted, Golden received the same prize amount as the boys.
Noah Smith is an economist, not a political theorist. Still, he’s pretty smart, so when he offers a view of things outside economics, it’s worth a look.
This link is not run-of-the-mill wool-gathering. It’s a big bite at what’s going on in geopolitics. The gist is that a shift from U.S. unipolar dominance to multipolarism means many more tin-pot war-mongers feel at liberty to get uppity and attack their neighbors.
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/youre-not-going-to-like-what-comes
Smith’s argument involves the issue of relative U.S. decline. Interestingly, there is not even a consensus on whether there’s a consensus regarding relative U.S. decline in a place where such a consensus could have real, practical consequences:
https://thediplomat.com/2023/10/there-is-no-consensus-on-american-decline-in-beijing/
I think he should stick to economics. He is talking about a past that never was and a change that is hard to see in the data.
The MAGA Republican Party has turned into a disgusting group of people who will abuse a terrorist attack for vile political advantage:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-white-house-fired-back-at-the-head-of-the-republican-national-committee-for-saying-the-attacks-on-israel-presented-a-great-opportunity-for-gop-candidates/ar-AA1hVUqZ?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=bf66a1dba0a5409abaad85301f59eee9&ei=9
The White House condemned the chair of the Republican National Committee on Monday after she said on television that the recent attacks in Israel were a “great opportunity” for GOP candidates. Appearing on Fox News on Saturday, Ronna McDaniel said that Hamas’ all-out attack on Israel over the weekend presented a key chance for Republicans vying to become the next president to make their case about why a Republican president should lead the country next. “I think this is a great opportunity for our candidates to contrast where Republicans have stood with Israel, time and time again, and Joe Biden has been weak,” McDaniel said. “And when America is weak, the world is less safe. We’re seeing this not just with the war in Ukraine and with an emboldened China, but now with an attack on Israel. “Two days after McDaniel’s comments, White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said, “No one can ever welcome this kind of hideous behavior or try to divide the country when we need to be united.”
One would hope Republicans would reject what McDaniel said but so far many of them are echoing her trash.
Is this straight out of “The Onion” satire?? Please tell me I’m not the only one noticing the phonetic similarity of Ronna McDaniel and Ronald McDonald.