The ADP survey cumulative increase in private NFP since 2023M03 is 3.1mn, more than the 2.8mn reported in the current official CES series.
In contrast, the preliminary benchmark indicates 819 thousand less in March 2024 than the current official series. Assuming the increases in private NFP since March 2024, the increase in employment is 2.0mn.
Figure 1: Cumulative increase in private NFP since March 2023 according to CES (blue), according to ADP (tan), according to preliminary benchmark (red square), all in 000’s, s.a. Source: BLS, ADP via FRED, BLS, and author’s calculations.
The ADP-Stanford series is not based on a survey, but actual check cutting operations. The Preliminary Benchmark relies upon QCEW (unemployment insurance). While the QCEW is a census, the data gets updated. In addition, some employment will not be captured since some employment is not reported to the tax authorities. Hence, Goldman Sachs thinks the effective downward revision is about 300K, instead of 818K, for the total NFP (no separate figure reported by GS for private NFP).
Be careful – Trump is riled up accusing everyone of lying about employment statistics. Please do not let the Proud Boys know where you are.
OK the politics I guess:
818,000 jobs correction may not worry economists. It’s a problem for Kamala Harris
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/818-000-jobs-correction-may-not-worry-economists-it-s-a-problem-for-kamala-harris/ar-AA1pcGAm?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=056f532b12ae4043b9157daef3584cda&ei=14
The federal government routinely revises economic data, but it rarely makes a correction as large as it did on Wednesday, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported America’s economy created 818,000 fewer jobs than it initially thought over the past year. The new data comes at a politically consequential moment, as Vice President Kamala Harris tries to ride momentum as Democrats’ new presidential nominee and rewire voters’ perceptions of the Biden administration’s economy. The White House, and Harris along with it, has struggled to figure out how to convince Americans that despite a widespread and consistent public unease about the US economy, things are actually going quite well and that inflation has been tamed without substantially ruining the labor market. Joe Biden boasted at the Democratic National Convention Monday night that he had helped create 16 million new jobs as president, rounding up from 15.8 million. He could no longer say that after Wednesday’s BLS report. Still, creating 15 million new jobs is not nothing – far more than the nearly 7 million jobs created during Donald Trump’s administration after stripping out pandemic-related job losses.
While the last line should be the emphasis, your analysis suggests that this figure is likely MORE than 15 million new jobs. Something else we will not hear on Faux News.
All Employees, Total Nonfarm
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS
Employment was less on Jan. 2021 than it was on Jan. 2017. Yea 2020 was a disaster which is directly tied to Trump’s utter incompetence during COVID19. But I guess the modern Republican Party has to excuse the utter incompetence of their favorite racist.
Picked up gasoline today, $2.779. Not sure how many gallons. I assume it was right but it always makes me feel better to visually check it. Should have been 7.19 gallons. Anyways. Have a decent amount in the tank, but also some empty in case it drops again. A little stunt I like to do, so I can kinda “shift” on price changes. “Hold out” if it rises, fill up if it drops a decent amount. Try to keep the bastards honest. Instead of their dictate every time I get near empty.
Did you pick up some used smart phones for Bruce Hall as he wants to make apple sauce tonight. Yea – not an appealing recipe but Brucie says he has his own secrets.
This is a humorous reference to something?? Yah, I like to cook sometimes, but not apple sauce. I have no room to criticize, I am one of those dweebs that uses a very cheap “Consumer Cellular” phone.
Bruce Hall has been citing the high profit margins of Apple Computers as evidence that fruit producers make higher profits than meat processsors. I kid you not.
OK. was just backtracking recent comments I missed. I finally got the apple sauce i-Phone reference.
While Republicans keep grasping at straws to blame Biden for global inflation, I found this post to be “old news” (posted August 2) but still worth highlighting for the economically uninitiated.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/disinflation-progress-a-comparison-of-advanced-economies-20240802.html
Nice link. Two minor quibbles with the paper.
The authors neglect to mention the impact of exchange rate fluctuations, perhaps because of the political element. The UK managed to shoot itself first in one foot with Brexit, then the other with the Truss/Kwartang budget disaster, and has paid a price in higher inflation. The Euro has suffered due to exposure to Russian energy supplies.
Note also that for the U.S. labor market contribution to inflation, the authors rely on Blanchard/Bernanke, which relies heavily on job openings data. It’s debatable whether openings data were a good choice.
I am skeptical of the Goldman Sachs analysis, for a number of reasons:
1. It assumes most of the recent surge in immigration is illegal, rather than people claiming asylum. My understanding is that the percentage of the latter has been increasing.
2. The analysis assumes that employers are willing to volunteer to the BLS that “I,ve hired 10 new employees this month” (that I’m not reporting taxes on).” Doen’t seem very likely. If an employer hires someone under the table, they’re probably not telling their friendly government survey taker that they’ve done so either.
3. Even more importantly, Uncle Sam *really* wants his withholding taxes paid, so he’s willing to issue an”Individual Tax ID #” without a Social Security #, no questions asked. In my experience, most Illegales take advantage of this, and even file for refunds if due! This is partly to show good character, and partly to build a record of employment for future benefits if they ever become legal.
4. In further follow up to #2 above, it strikes me that a worker is more likely to report employment in the Household Suvey than an Emoloyer reporting an under the table hire in the Establishment Survey. Which means that the Household Survey should be picking up more Illegales than the Establishmen Survey. Since, the former was only up 0.4% YoY in March, compared with the letter’s 1.9%, it clearly is not!
Maybe GS has addressed these issues, but until I see explanations, I remain *very* skeptical that the QCEW isn’t the most accurate measure.
Since my son works for Amgen, I checked their financials which show an operating margin above 31% over the past 3 years. Now my son tells me they are not food processors as they design, market, produce, and sell biopharma products. And yea they have a lot of market power.
But our dear Bruce Hall probably thinks they process some form of fruit, which leads to his excuse for the fact that a meat processor might earn 7.5% operating margins which this moron thinks is a normal profit for a competitor. Never mind this translates into a 40% return to capital.
That’s not high if one consumes smart phones for fruit and biopharma products for protein. After all Brucie thought bleach cured COVID. MAGA!
Concentration and Consolidation in the U.S. Food Supply Chain: The Latest Evidence
and Implications for Consumers, Farmers, and Policymakers By Tina L. Saitone and Richard J. Sexton
Kansas City Federal Reserve Economic Review
https://www.kansascityfed.org/documents/764/Concentration_and_Consolidation_in_the_U.S._Food_Supply_Chain_The_Latest_Evidence_and_.pdf
It was written in 2017 and has a great discussion of the history of studies with respect to the market power in the food processing sector, which dates back over a century. I doubt anyone in the Trump Administration read this as they did nothing about this market power. We know Bruce Hall refuses to read that 2020 paper I provided earlier as this MAGA moron is too busy chirping away utter nonsense that proves he does not have even the basic economic skills.
I bet someone on Team Harris is reading the relevant literature as she seems to get the implications of this market power. So let the morons who do not call her stupid as that is all they got.
https://farmaction.us/
Farm Action wants farmers to get a better deal from the oligopolistic food processing industry. The document shows their concentration as well as the market power of firms like ADM that supply things like seeds to farmers.
Oh wait – Bruce Hall thought ADM was a food processing. No – and Apple Computers does not produce fruit even if Brucie makes apple sauce out of used iPhones!
pgl From the farmer’s perspective meat and food processors have oligopsony power. From grocer’s perspective meat and food processors have oligopoly power.
Terrific point. But I’m also wondering how many food processors also own the farms? I don’t know, that is an earnest question. Example: How many pig farms does Tyson own??
I know a bit about Tyson Foods (Brucie Hall pretends he does but his accounting skills are horrific). From their recent 10K:
‘Our integrated operations consist of breeding stock, contract farmers, feed production, processing, further-processing, marketing and transportation of chicken and related specialty products, including animal and pet food ingredients. Through our wholly-owned subsidiary, Cobb-Vantress, we are one of the leading poultry breeding stock suppliers in the world. Investing in breeding stock research and development allows us to breed into our flocks the characteristics found to be most desirable.’
A lot of these processors rely on third party contract farmers who basically they screw but Cobb-Vantress is a subsidiary. I’ll have to dig out a great AER paper by my microeconomic professor on the issue of whether Vertical Integration raises or lowers prices.
Imagine the politics of helping both farmers and customers. No wonder the MAGA crowd wants to so misrepresent these issues.
Joint Oligopsony-Oligopoly Power in Food Processing Industries: Application to the us Broiler Industry
Stephen F. Hamilton, David L. Sunding
24 July 2020
American Journal of Agricultural Economics
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ajae.12115
I put up this article in a comment a while back. We have asked Bruce Hall to read it many times. Yea – the troll never did. You might enjoy it.
https://farmaction.us/2024/06/25/reuters-us-to-clarify-enforcement-of-antitrust-laws-in-meatpacking/
Livestock farmers in the U.S. would have a clearer path to bringing antitrust complaints against meatpacking companies for unfair business practices under a rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Tuesday. The proposed rule is the fourth introduced by the Biden administration to beef up competition in the highly consolidated meatpacking industry. Earlier rules would require fairer pay to chicken farmers, enhance transparency in poultry contracts, and prohibit retaliation against chicken farmers for raising concerns about anti-competitive behavior. The rule proposed on Tuesday would clarify how farmers and ranchers should prove that they have been harmed by the alleged anti-competitive behavior of meatpackers and will better enable the USDA to enforce antitrust laws, the agency said in a press release. “Entrenched market power and the abuses that flow from it remain an obstacle to achieving lower prices for consumers and fairer practices for producers,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a statement. “Today’s proposed rule stands for clear, transparent standards so that markets function fairly and competitively for consumers and producers alike.” Farmers have argued that under current regulations, the bar for proving they have been harmed by anti-competitive behavior is too high and hinders their ability to seek recourse from USDA. “Farmers have long deserved this certainty,” said Sarah Carden, research and policy development director for Farm Action, a farmer advocacy group. The proposed rule will be open to public comment for 60 days.
Judging from a slew of stupid comments from Bruce Hall, he wants to help companies like Tyson Foods continue to screw both farmers and consumers. Now if Brucie boy is the best the meat processing sector can hire as an expert, the farmers are going to win hands down!
Those farmers better vote for Harris – because this thing ain’t going nowhere under a True,p administration.
Last two Meduza articles are really fascinating. Here is one of the two:
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/08/21/kremlin-officials-think-ukraine-s-kursk-incursion-could-continue-for-months-and-they-want-to-convince-russians-this-is-the-new-normal
I honestly thought they’d turn on Putin quicker than they have (which shows what an incredible stranglehold he has). But if the higher-ups in the Kremlin are refusing a large mass-mobilization of troops, (again this is getting back to supply side issue in the “regular”/non-war economy) I think Putin has serious serious problems. Losses like this Kursk thing cannot go on for long and Putin is going to have a contingent of the Kremlin start trying to figure how they are going to get rid of him and who takes his spot.
Putin is a resourceful SOB, you gotta give him that much.
Russia will ride the Putin train all the way down. He is so entrenched that they cannot get rid of him. He knows the danger, and has begun replacing professionals in the military leadership and security forces with really close loyal people, and family members. This will make for an even less organized effort in Ukraine. His aversion against general mobilization is both because of labor shortages and also from the idea that the population may turn against him if they are asked to make real sacrifices.
He has given the military leaders a deadline for kicking Ukrainians out of Kursk at about the time the rainy (mud) season begins. But he has not given them the resources that it would take to get that job done. So it will fail, and then he may finally move the professionals from Donbas to Kursk. But since Ukraine will have had time to dig in at the rivers in Kursk it will be extremely costly to kick them out again. They may even have learned a maneuver warfare trick or two to be applied for taking back part of Donbas.
Our press is getting more stupid than even MAGA moron. The following is from worthless rant that said they talked to “economic experts” about Kamala Harris proposal:
“She blames the high cost of food on price gouging, which flies in the face of the economic data,” said Joel Griffith, an economic policy research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “Producers and the food industry have actually been absorbing these inflationary costs.” Griffith also said that grocery stores are operating at a 1.6% profit margin and Kroger, the largest traditional supermarket chain, saw their profits decrease by nearly 2%.
Yea – this is the BS you get from the Heritage Foundation. Can we repeat for the millionth time – the issue is the market power of food processing not the damn retail stores.
Didn’t there used to be some old joke about this, that when you asked a child “Where are milk, eggs etc made??” and the child would answer “the store”.
Apparently, Heritage, MAGA, and Johnny “Grumpy” Cuckrant are not any smarter than a 4 year old.
When I was a child my late grandfather had a hen house. He would take me there when it was time to collect the eggs. The hens never liked that. Grandpa was a lot braver than I ever was.
https://www.heritage.org/staff/joel-griffith
Joel Griffith – Research Fellow, Financial Regulations, Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies
Joel Griffith is a Research Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for economic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation. Joel earned his juris doctor at the Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law, with a dual emphasis in Alternative Dispute Resolution and Federal Income Taxation; he is currently a member of the State Bar of California. At Chapman, he was a charter board member and treasurer of the Investment Law Society, served as a charter member and vice-president of the Chapman chapter of the California Republican Lawyers Association, and competed on both the mock trial and mediation teams.
Following law school, Joel managed an equities trading account utilizing market neutral strategies. As an attorney, he worked with Heideman Nudelman Kalik, PC in Washington, D.C. During the 2012 presidential primary season, Joel worked for a campaign as Michigan State Field Director, Ohio State Operations Director, and Washington Parliamentarian / Assistant Delegate Strategist.
Prior to Heritage, he worked as a researcher for a former member of The Wall Street Journal editorial board. Joel also was Deputy Research Director at the National Association of Counties. Most recently, he was Director of the Center for State Fiscal Reform at the American Legislative Exchange Council. Numerous media outlets have featured Joel’s written analysis, including The Hill, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes online, Investor’s Business Daily, The Washington Times, the Orange County Register, and Times of Israel. He also made appearances on Fox News and Fox Business News.
Golly gee – he got a law degree from a Christian University! Heritage claims this lawyer is an expert on housing (cough, cough). Nowhere does his own bio says he knows a damn thing about the food sector. And yet he offers himself as an “economic expert”. I would trust him even less than I trust Steive Koptis!
Torsten Slok never disappoints. This is going to be a huge pull down on commodities demand. And one would somewhat assume at least a slowdown in price increases on gasoline etc.
I hope Kopits is gonna get that “Commissioner of Sewers” job in Cape Cod he’s been angling for ‘cuz he might find these oil markets over the next 6–7 months just boring as hell.
China’s birth rate is 1.7 children per woman. That’s well below the 2.1 child replacement rate. High youth unemployment is a drag on fertility and youth unemployment is still headed up. The last time the fertility rate was at least 2.1 was 1991, which means even with today’s low rate, the persistence if low fertility has flipped from lowering the dependency burden to raising it – too few new labor market entrants to keep up with retirements. It’s hard to turn that around in less than a generation. The current life expectancy in Chuna is nearly 79 years, up from 70 in 2000. Retirement age in China – 50 years for blue collar, 55 for white collar women, 60 for white collar men. Big problems in these figures.
Chocking part is that even with those early retirements ages they have a huge youth unemployment problem.
Forgot to put up the Slok link I was referencing.
https://www.apolloacademy.com/negative-population-growth-in-china/
“Population growth in China has now turned negative. This is important because a growing labor force used to be a strong driver of growth in China. Combined with falling home prices and ongoing trade wars with Europe and the US, the headwinds to growth in China are intensifying. One implication for markets is continued downward pressure on commodity prices.”
Maybe JD Vance can move to China and bash those Chinese cat ladies. Come on ladies – get pregnant and have lots of babies. It’s the Christian thing to do!
While I’m on the subject of weak resumes here’s another one:
https://www.johnlocke.org/about/team/kelly-lester/
The Washington Examiner is touting some “report” called Sowing Prosperity as their new response to the issue of food prices. I just read it and it said NOTHING about market power. It did say we are doing too much in terms of addressing climate change and we need less regulations. Your standard John Locke waste of time.
Now it would be nice if we had a real discussion on the issue of food prices but so far the right has done nothing more than lie and write irrelevant fluff. Of course the right cannot be bothered to talk to a credible agricultural economics I guess this is what we should expect.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mike-lindell-sports-new-look-in-disguise-at-dnc-spews-election-lies-at-kid/ar-AA1pf1tz?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=960f342bc65f4ea8b5e4b8ab46b5fcab&ei=7
Fun video to watch. Worthless Pillow dude Mike Lindell thinks shaving his ugly mustache can get him into the DNC but he ends up debating a kid over alleged election fraud. The kid kicked his butt!
Democrats sometimes are the masters of being tone deaf. Why have a half-senile woman on the DNC convention that 46% of Americans just really mostly detest??
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1203205/favorability-nancy-pelosi-us-adults/
She’s “Hillary Lite” in terms of inspiring Republicans to get off their couch just to vote against her. Are you going to throw the ball (go out and vote) at the dunk tank if someone you like is in the seat?? Or will you throw the ball at the dunk tank (vote) at someone you hate?? Democrats always find a way to mess their pants.
Democrat “strategists”: “Oh, Pelosi’s hugely unpopular with the average American?? Lets put her on the night before our nominee speaks and on the same night Bill Clinton talks. Yeah!!! Genius!!!”
Al Sharpton?? Al Sharpton is going to pull in independents and “undecideds”?? The guy is a walking fraud. Couldn’t even stay true to his second wife.
One implication of the downward revision to employment is an upward revision to productivity. Here’s a picture of non-farm labor productivity and real compensation:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1sYZK
Note that the two tracked closely during the prior expansion, but that recently compensation has lagged. A downward revision to employment means real compensation has lagged productivity gains even more than is is represented in the picture. By the way, if you look at these same series over a longer period, you’ll see that the post-housing-crash expansion was the first time in a long time that compensation kept pace with productivity – something which suggests monopsony power is widespread.
In the current recovery, this is a picture of a low-wage-pressure labor market and, as it turned out, a high profit margin economy. This is not what we’re hearing from business or from the Fed, but it’s what the numbers say.
What is not evident from the revision to employment data is whether more capacity is available than it seemed prior to the revision. Potential output may be lower, along with employment, or not. If firms offered compensation commensurate with productivity gains, more workers might have been available to hire.
I heard Diane Swonk from KPMG commenting on the outlook in light of employment revisions, saying the revisions mean firms can more easily hire without cutting into profits; that’s a clumsy simpliication. She also seemed to suggest avoiding pressure on margins is some sort of golden rule for the Fed. She’s not the only one to slip in a pro-owner bias when discussing policy. The behavior of the Fed under Powell suggests the Fed shares the bias.
Given the new low in compensation as a share of GDP reached in this cycle, that’s not a justifiable bias:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1sZ37
“Vibecession” indeed.
“this is a picture of a low-wage-pressure labor market and, as it turned out, a high profit margin economy. This is not what we’re hearing from business”
Well the Meat Institute has hired Bruce Hall as their spokesperson. After all a 40% return to capital for those food processors is not that high when one compares it to the profit margin for Apple, Inc. Yea Brucie does not know the difference between fruit and a smart phone. MAGA!
In the movie “Doctor Strange love”, the Soviets builds a doomsday device as a reference to nuclear attack, but doesn’t tell anyone. Party officials wanted it to be a surprise for the Premier’s birthday.
In a posture of muually-assured destruction, keeping nuclear war-foghting plan a secret would be a mistake. That’s probably why Biden administration officials have been instructed to leak a shift in U.S. nuclear weapons policy mean to counter changing circumstances:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/20/us/politics/biden-nuclear-china-russia.html
The new posture anticipates that China will rival the U.S. and Russia in nuclear weapons capacity and that North Korea will be a significant threat. China offered up it’s usual “but we’re so nice!” blather in response:
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4841307-china-concerned-reported-us-nuclear-strategy-shift/
Nothing very surprising here, but troubling nevertheless.
Beautiful picture. Wonder if this was on “CCTV” today?? No, I don’t mean closed-circuit television:
https://news.usni.org/2024/08/22/u-s-destroyer-sails-through-taiwan-strait-transit
“…reference to nuclear attack…”? Criminy. Deterence to nuclear attack.
Hey Moses,
“The Atlantic” thinks you’re on to something:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/08/election-polls-2020-mistakes/679545/
Subtract the polling bias from the last two presidential elections from the margin of Harris over Trump and she has reason to worry. Democrats seem to know that – “sleep when we’re dead”.
Thought you’d enjoy this one Macroduck. Some old metrics here, but a new perspective of looking at those metrics. I think their terminology via”fiscal R-star” gives a “short hand” to grasping a semi complicated topic. My brain needs all the “short hand” it can get.
https://www.ft.com/content/acd06771-4249-404d-bf52-7e698fb4ef24
A fascinating discussion which I will have to read more carefully tomorrow. And the Star War analogies are great. All this needs is some John Williams music.
@ Macroduck I’m not sure how reliable this data is on voters leaving the two states. I would think Nevada is a lost cause anyway. But certainly if I was a Democrat strategist I would be digging into this to see how accurate it is:
https://www.redfin.com/news/voter-registration-nevada-arizona-2024/
BTW, I think some Democrats “get it”, that it’s going to be super super tight. Obama gets it, Walz gets it, Bill Clinton gets it. Which is why it’s so baffling that some of the convention decisions are contrary to getting independents and undecideds to show up and vote for Harris. Pelosi speaking was dumb-a$$, Hillary speaking was dumb-aSS, and Al Sharpton speaking is dumb-A$$. They should have invited Khizr Khan back to the convention. It was incredibly incredibly emotionally impactful when Mr Khan spoke. Change the speech slightly and have him speak again–that’s what should have been done—instead of pure boredom cliches from Pelosi. Can you catch lightning in a bottle twice”?? Maybe not, but Khizr Khan deserved to have the stage again, he could have focused more on trump’s more recent anti-military remarks and been quite effective. But Dems want to go with boredom and corruption—Pelosi, Hillary, and Sharpton. I’m a Democrat, and I find it nauseating when there are so many good choices—like Mr. Khan~~out there.
So the #2 MAGA moron JD Vance was asked about the 1/6/2021 riots and how they wanted to hang Mike Pence in light of how Jamie Raskin trolled him. Vance said he had to laugh (like that riot was funny) and how Democrats play the victim. Never mind it was the Capital police that were brutally beaten and how Pence and his family could have been killed. Victim that you little fake Marine!
Vance next said the real problem was grocery prices. Well high food prices would not be a problem after a MAGA insurrection killed you.
Serious question – who is dumber? Bruce Hall or JD Vance. It is a very close race.
JD Vance promoted far-right views in speech about extremists’ book
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/22/jd-vance-speech-extremist-far-right-book
In a December 2023 speech, JD Vance defended a notorious white nationalist convicted over 2016 election disinformation, canvassed the possibility of breaking up tech companies, attacked diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts and talked about a social media “censorship regime” that “came from the deep state on some level”. The senator’s speech was given at the launch of a “counterrevolutionary” book – praised by the now Republican vice-presidential candidate as “great” – which was edited and mostly written by employees of the far-right Claremont Institute. In the book, Up from Conservatism, the authors advocate for the repeal of the Civil Rights Act, for politicians to conduct “deep investigations into what the gay lifestyle actually does to people”, that college and childcare be defunded and that rightwing governments “promote male-dominated industries” in order to discourage female participation in the workplace.
Interesting article on immigration (a litle dark, mentions deaths, so don’t read if you are overly-sensitive to such things):
https://www.texasobserver.org/el-paso-migrant-death-heat/
The downward jobs revision delivered ‘a big blast against Bidenomics,’ ex-Trump economist says
Not going to link to the actual story as it was beyond stooopid. Care to guess who this “economist” is?
Ah you cheated. Yea – Stephen Moore. Trump’s kind of “economist”. And yea the story was on Faux News!
Off topic – de-dollarization:
From Guyana’s “Stabroek News”, of all places, comes a lucid article on the dollar’s role in international finance, penned by Tarron Kemraj, of the New College of Florida and the University of the West Indies. Kemraj argues that de-dollarization will take more than just time, though a lot of that would be required. Some other country must become a net importer on a grand scale in order to generate a massive pool of externally held assets.
Only because it’s a point I’ve made myself (yes, I’m that vain), I’ll quote this:
“China will have to be willing to assume deficits that supply the rest of the world with its own sovereign assets – something the US legal system, as well as its respect for private property rights, wide-ranging and deep money and capital markets, and somewhat better than quasi-democracy make seamless.”
https://www.stabroeknews.com/
EJ Antoni in his interview with Michelle Cordero on August 2022:
https://www.heritage.org/markets-and-finance/heritage-explains/bidens-recession
“the basic understanding is that when the economy shrinks for two consecutive quarters, so three months, and then another three months, that’s a recession … I suppose there is no technical official definition, but I’ve taught plenty of economics courses. That was what we used in every single class. That’s what you’ll see in most, if not all economics textbooks. That’s been the understanding for the last 100 years. So the idea that this is somehow new or not true, I dismiss that out of hand.”
I’m wondering if Antoni has ever even read a macroeconomics textbook. He certainly did not name a single one. But come on – the understanding since 1922? Two problems with this statement.
The BEA only started reporting real GDP on a quarterly basis since 1947. Now does Heritage has its own independent reporting of real GDP on a quarterly basis that dates back 125 years? I haven’t seen it.
And there’s this:
https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c2980/c2980.pdf
Measuring Business Cycles
Arthur F. Burns and Wesley C. Mitchell
NBER
Publication Date: 1946
Antoni claims business cycles have been defined in his simplistic way in every economic textbook for 100 years. Really? The seminal paper on this topic was not written until 1946 not 1922. And Antoni needs to READ this paper as he has no clue what he is babbling about.
National security genius Trump yesterday: “We’re gonna return the world to peace. And mostly I can do it with a telephone call … ‘you go to war with another country that’s friendly to us or even not friendly to us, you’re not gonna do business in the US and we’re gonna charge you 100% tariffs.’ … And suddenly they say ‘Sir, I won’t go to war’ “.
Who knew it was so easy! And we make a profit on the tariffs!
So Yellen did this with Ural Oil and Stevie I love to be on Fox and Friends Koptis said it would not work. But now that Trump says it, Stevie agrees. After all he has to be on Fox and Friends!
The Veterans of Foreign Wars call out Bonespurs Trump over those medal comments:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-draws-fire-remarks-medal-honor-recipients/story?id=112883414
Where’s fake Marine JD Vance? Come on JD – tell us why the Veterans of Foreign Wars are wrong. I dare you.
Trump’s Outrageous January 6 Gala Is a Giant Flashing Warning Sign
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-s-outrageous-january-6-gala-is-a-giant-flashing-warning-sign/ar-AA1pgWOU?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=3e84fad4e7e74781a05aa8d84c18b92c&ei=53
Donald Trump has taken January 6 denialism to a new level: He’s going to be hosting an awards ceremony dedicated to the Capitol riot. On September 5, a “J6 Awards Gala” will be held at Trump’s golf club in Bedminister, New Jersey. The event will include a raffle to win a plaque recognizing the “Justice For All” song performed by Trump and the “J6 Prison Choir,” which briefly reached the Billboard Music Chart. The choir is made up of defendants serving prison sentences for their actions in the Capitol in 2021.
Trump is scheduled as a guest speaker, as is his former lawyer and indicted co-defendant Rudy Giuliani. A separate flier for the event notes that tickets range from $2,500 for an individual to $50,000 for a table for 12. “We gather to pay tribute not only to these individuals but to all J6 defendants who have shown incredible courage and sacrifice,” the event description states. In a promotional video for the event, Trump calls the rioters “peaceful” and “hostages,” and adds that “there have never been people treated more horrifically than J6 hostages.”
All of that absurd amount of money per ticket/table will go straight into Trumps pockets.
Off topic – the Frozen North:
Canada holds national election this Autumn, by October 20 at the latest. Conservatives are looking like a shoe in.
So today, two major Canadian rail firms locked workers out ahead of a planned strike. Public transit in several big cities will be snarled. Shipping within Canada and between Canada and the U.S. will be impaired. For the U.S., it will be a problem for some industries. For Canads, it is a serious problem for the entire economy. For Canada’s Liberals, it’s another nail in the coffin.
European leaders have looked to Canadian PM Trudeau as a sort of Trump wrangler, should Trump win. That was probably a vain hope – Trump’s glare has turned inward, toward his own resentment and fear. Flatter, rinse, repeat seems unlikely to win many successes if Trump wins. Vengeance, enrichment and permanent immunity were always goals, but now they’ll be all that matters.
Wrangling? Good luck, but don’t look to Trudeau.
This is one of those things that used to really get under my skin when I lived in China (and did my best not to show it in public setting, but my facial expression probably let my anger “seep out” from time to time). Mainland Chinese (and I’m talking middle aged adults here) would tell the type of lies that typically only a child of age 5 would tell. And I was looking at the tail end of this Navy website post today:
https://news.usni.org/2022/02/28/destroyer-uss-ralph-johnson-performs-taiwan-strait-transit
“Last month, USS Benfold (DDG-65) performed a FONOP near the Paracel Islands. The U.S. Navy at the time denied a Chinese claim that it expelled Benfold from the waters.”
Now this is from the year 2022 obviously. But, for the love of God, WHY (!?!?!!?!?!) tell these type lies, which are easily verifiable through video etc??? WHY tell these type lies?? This unfatiguable ability to tell super obvious lies, is one of the reasons mainland China never gets the “international” (mainland Chinese’ most badly translated English word) respect they seemingly desperately desire.