Further deceleration.
Figure 1: Final sales to private domestic purchasers (bold black), Nov SPF (tan), GDPNow of 1/5 (light blue square), 2023-24 stochastic trend (gray), in bn.Ch.2017$ SAAR. Source: BEA, Atlanta Fed, Philadelphia Fed, and author’s calculations.
It looks like the Trump admin dingbat tariff policies are hurting US manufacturing. The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index edged down to 47.9 from 48.2, according to data released Monday. According to Bloomberg: “The measure has been below 50, which indicates contraction, for 10 straight months. The decline in the measure reflected producers drawing down their raw materials inventories at the fastest rate since October 2024. That indicates many firms are relying on existing stockpiles to satisfy tepid demand.” Given the Trump admin restrictive immigration policy – I foresee the U.S. labor force participation declining next year – fewer workers and consumers means falling demand. It is interesting to me – the Biden admin carefully guided the U.S. economy to operate most efficiently for the working class and everyone – all those programs have been eliminated by trump to provide tax cuts for the super wealthy. I foresee stagflation or stagnating economy that is slowly declining based on Trump policies.
Maduro should hire Pam Bondi’s brother as his pardon attorney. It worked for the ex-president of Honduras.
Nah, quicker to just buy a pardon. After all, if he’s guilty, he surely has plenty of $$$$$ laying around…
Let’s take the view of various late-night comedians regarding the felon-in-chief’s motivation as reliable; the Epstein files and the felon’s terrible poll numbers and the midterm elections are what led to kidnapping Maduro. Bondi will need to keep the spotlight on Maduro, so look for a carnival of judicial folly.
Meanwhile, the goal of distracting the press and voters from voter discontent remains. Iran, Greenland, Mexico…all fair game for distracting voters. Maybe add more countries to the list as we go. I think we can rely on the felon to be more like his worst self in an election year, and two out of the next three years are election years.
By the way, “Wag the Dog” is available to rent from several of the big streaming services.
What do you know? U.S. oil execs tell CNN that decrepit infrastructure, political uncertainty, a history of expropriation and low oil prices mean that U.S. oil firms aren’t interested in Venezuela:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/05/business/venezuela-trump-oil-chevron
Where have we heard that before?
Speaking of Pam Bondi, check out her official DOJ post with a graph purporting to show the tremendous job Trump has done reducing the drug overdose death rate. Except she makes the classic every-four-years error of thinking that Biden’s term started in January 2020 and Trump’s term started in January 2024.
Instead her graph shows that there was a big increase in deaths in the last year of Trump’s first term, 2020, and a big reduction in deaths in the last year of Biden’s term, 2024, — exactly the opposite of her claim.
After many people pointed out her utter stupidity, she deleted the post. “Only the best people”, amirite.
https://tinyurl.com/yc2krdy2
Trump has to invade Greenland so he can take away their free healthcare.
Trump has to invade Greenland so he can take away their free healthcare.