Since “Liberation Day”, so-so:
Figure 1: Manufacturing employment, production and nonsupervisory workers (blue), aggregate worker hours (green), manufacturing production (tan), real value added (red), all in logs, 2022M10=0. Aggregate hours calculated by multiplying employment by weekly average hours. Source: BLS, Federal Reserve, BEA, and author’s calculations.
Manufacturing production (a gross measure) is at best flat since just before “Liberation Day”, while labor market indicators are unambiguously down. When tariffs are more fully implemented, will employment rise? I doubt it, but even if production is on-shored, I suspect automation will result in little net employment increase (see Firooz, Leduc, and Liu, 2025).
The ongoing deportations will impact employment. Manufacturing will have to spend more on automation.
How’s Peak Oil doing?
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2007/05/peak_oil_in_ame
Paging Jim Hamilton.
Still with a chip on your shoulder. Still hiding behind “Anonymous”.
The world has changed a great deal in 18 years. Lots of new issues, lots of problems to solve. Grown ups are thinking about those things. But here you are, harping on a single forecast from almost two decades ago. Sad.
it’s still coming, it was just delayed a couple decades after they figured out how to get oil out of rocks…i think the EIA gives us 20 years left of oil at current rates, 18 years of natural gas…under Trump’s trade regimen, the latter will be much shorter, since he is forcing US LNG export commitments on the rest of the world at a rate about 10 times what we can currently deliver…but not to worry, i’m sure Iran and Qatar will be willing to supply us when we run out..
At current prices of $60-65 per barrel we will not have much new drilling – they cannot make money at that price.
Since fracking wells run out in 3-5 years the drop could come sooner and more drastic than EIA predicts.
actually, prof. hamilton’s article was pretty good. it has been clear for decades that oil as a primary source of energy is not a good policy. in addition to all the problems with the oil industry noted by prof. hamilton, you can add the one that he really did not wade into, but which is important today. it is DIRTY and contributing to global warming issues. peak oil occurred once, and for a while you saw how costly it was. this was a preview. now a technological innovation occurred, and has extended the life of oil a few more years. but how many technological innovations do you realistically expect going forward. the fact is, oil is a finite resource and you will run out sooner rather than later. are you disputing this fact? now you could extend the life of oil another decade or so if you enforced gas milage standards, but of course the republican in you cannot bring yourself to do so. therefore peak oil will occur sooner rather than later. a major solution is the transition of autos from ice to EV, which effectively allows you to diversity your energy source for transportation. but it has many other benefits as well.
the war in ukraine, and the nuclear threat from iran would not exist if oil had been abandoned in 2005. that is a fact.
Kristi Noem and her goons raided the Hyundai EV plant under construction in Georgia and arrested 450 people, most of whom are South Korean citizens. They claim they are arresting criminals, the worst of the worst. I wonder what South Koreans think about their citizens being treated as criminals in the US?
This is supposed to bring manufacturing to the US? I guess Hyundai’s mistake was to plan on building EVs.
Gotta make an example of those sneaky South Korean types. They’re after our jobs. That’s ’cause things are so tough back home, where the unemployment rate is 2.5%:
https://tradingeconomics.com/south-korea/unemployment-rate
And where per capita income is slightly higher than Japan’s:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
And where crime is relatively rare:
https://www.statista.com/topics/7254/crime-in-south-korea/#topicOverview
Common talking point from anti-immigrant types are baloney, but in this case the baloney is rancid. South Korea isn’t a major source of immigration to the U.S., illegal or otherwise. Not criminals. Don’t need our jobs. Some aggrieved white boys complained about “them immigrants” and ICE Barbie jumped at the chance to ICE them.
Hope she’s better at the rest of her job – making the country secure – than she is at getting rid of the worst illegal immigrants.
The jobs report is old hat now, I realize, but here’s a picture of Black and youth unemployment rates compared to the headline unemployment rate:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1M6MQ
The rise in the black jobless rate may be the result of arbitrary cuts to federal employment; DOGE turns out to have been a racist bunch. Who’d have guessed? That’s not as good an explanation for the rise in youth unemployment.
Here’s a look at the difference between the black rate and the headline rate:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1M6Ne
Maybe DOGE means this time is different, but note how a widening gap between black and headline unemployment typically leads to recession.
Long-term unemployment is up substantially from the cycle low, also a reliable recession indicator:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UEMP27OV
One of the lessons the Fed has learned over the years is not to dawdle in cutting rates. There is an oft-stated conventional wisdom that the Fed is (or should be) reluctant to cut rates more than expected so as to avoid stoking public concern about the economy. I’m not aware of any actual evidence for this view.
So maybe 50 basis points.
Holy moly!
Trump today: “Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR”
This is nutso. The US government going to war against its own citizens. Isn’t this what the NRA has been barking about all these years, the necessity of armed citizens to defend themselves against a rogue government? Not a peep from them.
Some of us who write comments here have been unfair in denigrating to E.J. Antoni’s qualification to head ths Bureau of Labor Statistics. CNN has uncovered heretofore unexamined writings by Mr. Antoni which give a fuller understanding of his intellect and experience:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/05/politics/kfile-ej-antoni-bureau-of-labor-statistics-twitter-account-vis
Misogyny, racism, gay-baiting, conspiracy theories – the sorts of things we require of our top federal officials.
Wouldn’t want to hire someone who wouldn’t fit right in, would we?
It’s the new old boys club.