ADP and BLS CES and QCEW data confirm:
Figure 1: Change since 2025M01 in manufacturing employment from BLS (blue), from implied preliminary benchmark (brown), in Powell conjecture prorated applied to implied preliminary benchmark (green), QCEW covered manufacturing seasonally adjusted using X-13 (in logs) by author (purple), and ADP (red), all in 000’s, s.a. Source: BLS via FRED, BLS, ADP, and author’s calculations.
Off topic – Plato’s ‘Symposium” has been banned from Texas A&M classrooms:
https://coreyrobin.com/2026/01/07/from-plato-to-porkys-the-politics-of-the-right/
It’s an anti-DEI thing.
Whether A&M will prove to be a lead steer or a laughing stock for other Texas educational institutions remains to be seen.
Off topic – Iran might be next:
“Chinese Maritime Surveillance Firm Warns of Intensified US Troop Transports Near Iran”
https://www.fredgao.com/p/chinese-maritime-surveillance-firm
The headline says “troop transport”. I think that reflects the inexperience of the blogger. The text says “transport” without qualification; the U.S. is not hauling infantry toward Iran.
And maybe the U.S. isn’t hauling anything. Fred Gao is a Chinese guy, working at a Chinese shop, relating data produced by a Chinese intelligence firm. Who knows?
Still, if the information he relates is mostly true, it suggests we are preparing to do something bad to Iran. There are other indications that we ar, in fact, ramping up to do something bad to Iran:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/indications-us-weighing-iran-intervention-200211043.html
All in all, I think Mr. Gao’s information is likely correct.
Maybe “preparing” is the point, since Iran will know anything that China knows about U.S. military activity in the region. Maybe this is mere intimidation on the paryoftheU.S. toward Iran. On the other hand, the felon-in-chief seems determined to dominate the headlines, no matter the cost. Bad employment data, government goons murdering innocent U.S. citizens and the DOJ’s refusal to release the vast majority of Epstein sex-with-children files have to be driven out of the headlines. Nothing like bombing muslims to distract the press.
If we do something bad to Iran, it will be in the context of the most widespread demonstrations against the Iranian regime in at least 15 years. The UK’s Express newspaper offers a single, unnamed source claimimg that the regime could fall “in weeks”. So, an unreliable, right-wing paper is flogging some unknown guy as a “source” for what is being widely speculated elsewhere; Iran’s government could go down with the right nudge. The government has just shut down public access to the internet, presumably to limit coordination of, and news of, demonstrations, and has stepped up killings of demonstrators. That looks like a sign the regime is sweating over its own survival.
Israel wants regime change in Iran. The felon-in-chief and neocons in general want regime change in Iran. (Y’all know the felon is a neocon, right? Soon as he came to power, he figured out he was neocon-lite. Second term, he has graduated to full neocon.) The U.S. is now going through the motions of preparing to destabilizing Iran’s government when regime collapse is already looking likely.
What would regime change look like? Take a look at the map: neighbors Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia will all back different factions inside Iran, making governance hard to re-establish. They would face a failed state with incomplete but dangerous nuclear resources. Any of those countries bordering Iran might decide that controlling Iran’s nuclear assets is essential to its own safety. Israel and the U.S. and Russia and probably China and Egypt will meddle to the extent they can, and either the U.S. or Israel might make a play for the nuclear stuff. A failed state with 90 million people could send millions of people spilling out to destabilize any of its several neighbors.
The wise course would be for Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, maybr Egypt, to work together to stand up a central government quickly. They’re all Sunni, so good luck with that, even if they can agree among themselves to cooperate.
China would face another disruption in its oil supply, on top of Venezuela, but China can shop for oil in international markets. Over the medium term, a disruption in Iran’s oil exports would push up prices generally, not just for China.
Ine last thing in Iran – here’s Reuters on today’s oil trade:
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-rises-concerns-about-supply-disruptions-venezuela-iran-increase-2026-01-09/
The price gain today comes after two days of decline, so pre-weekend short-covering is partof the story that Reuters seems to have left out. Still, traders are reportedly concerned about the demonstrations in Iran, but no mention of the U.S. meddling to destabilize Iran’s regime.
Not only are more restrictive immigration and deportations having a stagflation impact (slowing growth, inflation from missing workers -construction, healthcare providers, food processing, etc.) nationally – these “show of force” ICE actions in major cities – function as localized labor-supply shocks with national consequences, reducing U.S. GDP by roughly 0.3–0.6% while worsening service-sector inflation — a structurally stagflationary outcome.
By the way – all the manly man manufacturing jobs are increasingly being automated away by AI and robots –