and Monthly GDP for August, manufacturing production. First, NBER BCDC indicators:
Figure 1: NFP employment (bold blue), civilian employment with smoothed population controls (bold orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding current transfers in Ch.2017$ (bold light green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2017$ (black), and monthly GDP in Ch.2017$ (pink), GDP (blue bars), all log normalized to 2025M01=0. Source: BLS via FRED, BLS, Federal Reserve, BEA 2026Q2 3rd release, S&P Global Market Insights (nee Macroeconomic Advisers, IHS Markit) (9/2/2026 release), and author’s calculations.
Figure 2: Civilian employment adjusted to NFP concept smoothed population controls, using experimental controls for 2025 (bold orange), manufacturing production (red), ADP private nonfarm payroll employment (light green), real retail sales, CPI deflated (black), freight services indexes (brown), and coincident index in Ch.2017$ (pink), GDO (blue bars), all log normalized to 2025M01=0. Source: BLS, ADP via FRED, Philadelphia Fed, Philadelphia Fed, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Federal Reserve via FRED, BEA 2026Q2 3rd release, and author’s calculations.
Industrial production beat consensus, while manufacturing met them. Nominal retail sales also beat expectations, but CPI deflated sales were close to flat. Retail sales ex gasoline stations fell in real terms (i.e., deflated by core) actually fell (see Figure 3 below).
Figure 3: Retail sales deflated by CPI (blue), retail sales ex-gasoline states deflated by core CPI (red), both in logs, 2026M02=0. Source: Census, BLS, via FRED, and author’s calculations.
Fed Chair Kevin Warsh in an interview with IMF economist Kristalina Georgieva at a conference in Thailand feels compelled to interrupt and correct her: “You pronounce it AI. In the US we now pronounce it SI.”
Criminy. Can these MAGA sycophants debase themselves any more in obeisance to their Dear Leader? He’s Fed Chairman. He isn’t compelled to go along with Trump’s executive whims. He simply chose to do so — and went out of his way to make a point of it unnecessarily. These guys always perform for an audience of One.
US Treasury officially announces deficit for fiscal 2026 to be $1.99 trillion.
They had to go to two decimal places to avoid saying $2 trillion. That’s a difference of $10 billion. The Treasury spends more than $20 billion a day, so delaying a few checks for a few hours allows them to slip below the $2 trillion threshold.
Tell me that Scott Bessent isn’t a total clown.
The war-criminal-in-chief is either getting ready to go after Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear facility(s), or he’s talking war trash:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-says-us-may-strike-124150744.html
Everything I’ve read says Pickaxe is probably not directly vulnerable to MOABs, and the war criminal has said he won’t use nukes. So we aren’t going to accomplish much past the short term by bombing. There are reports of increased activity at Pickaxe, so the usual suspects are probably bugging the war criminal to bomb.
There’s internet blather about Iran saying the criminal asked that Iran not retaliate if we hit Pickaxe. I haven’t found confirmation. If true, it suggests the criminal doesn’t intend to do real harm – he’s just trying to look tough ahead of the election. If Iran did rat him out, it kinda says they aren’t interested in doing him favors. Can’t imagine why.
well i think SI (super intelligence ?????? is Tump renaming some tinh (he see to think he can call it what ever wants to, and everybody else has to also). course business doesnt seem all that amenable to change, and an executive order ONLY applies the executive branch, not to any one ese . suspect he knows (sometimes this but forgets it later)