Democrats’ draft autopsy report on 2024 Kamala Harris loss blames Biden’s political operation
Friday, May 22, 2026
Republican Congress critters got the hell out of town Thursday and won't be back until June and left all this unfinished business in their wake lol
Republicans lash out over $1.776B ‘anti-weaponization’ fund
McConnell slams Blanche over ‘slush fund to pay people who assault cops’
Republicans punt on reconciliation amid furious disagreement over ‘anti-weaponization’ fund
House Republicans fume at Senate for punting immigration funding package
House punts Iran war powers resolution vote
Trump approval among Republicans at new low in Fox News poll
Trump, facing GOP blowback, sends 5,000 troops to Poland
(Trump orders withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany amid feud with Merz)
Thursday, May 21, 2026
Yesterday's reported week over week US drawdown of 17.8 million barrels of crude oil was the largest on record
The announcement was made as usual at 1030 hours.
To head off a price increase in oil Trump at 1052 hours announced that the US was in the "final stages" of the negotiations with Iran, which was a load of crap.
Middle East tanker transits per UKMTO JMIC Update 47 May 12-18, 2026: Strait of Hormuz 2.00/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 15.42/day
The tanker table for JMIC Update 48 is a mess. It has the wrong dates, and five days of data are identical to the data in Update 47.
There was also a duplicate JMIC 46 update a few days ago, just minutes apart.
It is what it is.
 |
| From JMIC 47 |
 |
| From JMIC 48 (the dates should be 14 May-20 May like the Cargo Vessels table, but somehow the exact same data for May 12-16 from Update 47 reappears!) |
Look out Maine and New Hampshire, and North and South Carolina, they'll be comin' for your lithium when they come
... Mining these deposits would involve opening giant pits and destroying wildlife habitats, affecting the landscape and regional biodiversity. It would also create harmful pollution due to waste products such as fluids and finely ground rock that can leach trace elements
into the ground and waterways. Additionally, the heavy machinery that
would be required for hard-rock mining in the Appalachians would pump
huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and extracting
lithium from those rocks would involve toxic chemicals and more greenhouse gas emissions.
Trump cuts off his nose in the primaries to spite his face
Trump’s primary push could leave him with short-term problem in Congress
... the defeated or retiring incumbents he’s targeted remain in office until the end of their terms.
Those lawmakers, who no longer face voters and have little political incentive to fall in line, could make things difficult for Trump and GOP leaders as they feel more emboldened to push back against key partisan legislation. In a narrowly divided Congress, even a handful of GOP defections can derail a party-line bill. ...
You betcha.
Bill Cassidy in the Senate is already a problem for Trump post-defeat.
So is defeated Thomas Massie in the House.
Still in the crosshairs:
Sen. John Cornyn, Rep. Lauren Boebert, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick.
Already alienated and retiring:
Sen. Thom Tillis, Rep. Don Bacon.
Expect little to pass easily before November under these new intra-GOP adversarial circumstances, and even less after a Blue Wave.
Everybody's asking . . .
How low can Trump’s poll numbers go?
... The president’s average approval rating still hasn’t reached its lowest mark ever recorded. He fell to just above 37 percent in RealClearPolitics’s average in December 2017. ...
You wake up in the morning and yep, Trump has sunk to new record lows in the polling average overnight
Disapproval is at a new high 58.5% in the average.
Approval is at a new low 39.4% in the average.
Real Clear Politics polling average:
It's amazing that the answer of Donald J. Trump and now J. D. Vance to Senator John Cornyn of Texas is a crook
... Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she couldn’t understand Trump’s thinking, given that Paxton was charged with felony securities fraud and faced a lengthy prison sentence that he managed to avoid by reaching a deal with prosecutors to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution and complete 100 hours of community service.
“I don’t understand. He is an ethically challenged individual,” Collins said of Trump’s support of Paxton, who was charged of defrauding investors in a Dallas-area tech startup. The charges were later dropped after he agreed to a pretrial diversion program. ...
More.
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
No Jeff, the bottom 80% should pay zero in income taxes, the top 20% should pay 100% of the income taxes
Jeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes
The top 20% receive income in excess of $10 trillion. Taxed at 50% that will still pay for the federal government.
They can live on $100k just like the rest of us, and still have half of everything above that left over.
Pure market manipulation
U.S. crude oil falls below $100 per barrel after Trump says Iran talks in final stages
The only thing surprising about any of this is the market's 100% propensity to believe lies in order to make a buck.
Jonah Goldberg: Impeachment is still an available political remedy for Trump's serious abuses
... Contrary to thousands of hours of impeachment legal punditry going back to the Nixon administration, a president doesn’t have to commit a crime to be impeached. As Hamilton writes in Federalist 65, impeachment involves “the misconduct of public men” and “the abuse or violation of some public trust.” Impeachments are “POLITICAL” (Hamilton’s all-caps) because they injure “society itself.”
It may in fact be legal for the president to be the judge in his own cause and create a taxpayer-financed slush fund for him to reward cronies and henchmen on a whim. It is already clear that presidents can launch wars without Congress or the courts unduly getting in the way. But I struggle to think of hypothetical scenarios that would be more likely to arouse in Madison and his contemporaries the — now misplaced — reassurance that impeachment was an available remedy.
Here.
Ann Coulter's favorite candidate to defeat Mitch McConnell six years ago loses again lol
Booker defeats McGrath in Kentucky Democratic Senate primary
Charles Booker is projected to win the Kentucky Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday, according to Decision Desk HQ, defeating Amy McGrath in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
The victory came six years after McGrath, a retired Marine fighter pilot, narrowly defeated Booker in the primary for the seat, winning 45 percent of the vote to Booker’s 43 percent. McGrath went on to lose in the general election by nearly 20 points. ...
Elections have consequences as Mad King Ludwig eats his own narrow majority in the U.S. Senate and further alienates it
Trump's self-destructive alcoholic personality will only make him more legislatively unsuccessful this year than he has been already.
Cassidy becomes fourth GOP senator to back Iran war powers measure limiting Trump
Sen. Bill Cassidy, who lost his bid for a third term in Saturday’s Louisiana Senate Republican primary, on Tuesday became the fourth Republican senator to vote to advance a war powers resolution directing President Trump to withdraw U.S. armed forces deployed against Iran.
Cassidy joined Republican Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) in voting Tuesday for a motion to discharge the war powers resolution sponsored by Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The motion passed by a vote of 50 to 47, setting up a future vote to proceed to the motion on the Senate floor.
The resolution is privileged under the 1973 War Powers Act, allowing it to pass the Senate with a simple-majority vote instead of having to clear the 60-vote threshold required for most legislation.
Cassidy kept his plan to vote to advance the resolution secret until the last moment. He declined to reveal how he would vote on the measure when asked about it Monday.
Murkowski broke ranks with Senate Republican leaders last week to vote to advance the war powers resolution. ...
Trump’s ouster of Republican senator sends shock waves through Senate GOP
The resounding defeat of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R) in Saturday’s Louisiana primary has sent shock waves through the Senate Republican Conference, underscoring how Republicans who look to distance themselves from President Trump and his low approval ratings will have to think twice about paying a political price for perceived disloyalty.
Cassidy’s ouster came a few weeks after Trump and his allies helped defeat five state senators in Indiana who defied Trump’s desire to redraw the state’s congressional map, sending a loud message to any Republican on Capitol Hill thinking about clashing with the president. ...
[Republican Senator Thom] Tillis, an outspoken critic of some of the Trump administration’s actions this year, reacted angrily to Cassidy’s loss, sending an email to Republican colleagues on Monday threatening to block a budget reconciliation package from moving on the Senate floor later this week — even though it’s a top Trump priority.
Tillis expressed his disappointment over Cassidy’s loss on Saturday and urged Republican colleagues to delay action on the reconciliation bill so as not to force Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), another Republican colleague facing a tough primary on May 26, to stay in Washington until late this week to vote on the budget bill, according to a source familiar with the email’s details. ...
Senate GOP expresses frustration, anger, sadness as Trump snubs Cornyn in Texas
President Trump’s decision Tuesday to snub Sen. John Cornyn and endorse state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate Republican primary was met with frustration, anger and even sadness by Senate Republicans.
The move likely sinks Cornyn’s hopes of winning another Senate term, and Republicans warned it could make it tougher to defeat Democratic candidate James Talarico in November.
Republican senators exuded pain for Cornyn, who served as Senate Republican whip during Trump’s first term and is deeply respected by his Senate GOP colleagues. ...
Some Republican senators saw Trump’s treatment of Cornyn as a snub of Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), who had worked behind the scenes for months to persuade the president to back him.
The NRSC invested in Cornyn through a joint fundraising committee, and One Nation, a fundraising group affiliated with Thune’s political operation, has spent more than $10 million helping Cornyn. ...
Trump’s endorsement of Paxton and his attacks against Cassidy won’t make it any easier for him to muster GOP votes for his ballroom funding or for the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund to compensate MAGA allies who believe they were targeted by the government. ...
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Attention all you weak dollar lunatics
Nominal broad dollar index average values
Obama II, first year // 1Q second year // April 2014: 92.75 / 94.51 / 93.99
Trump II, first year // 1Q second year // April 2026: 122.75 / 119.01 / 119.03
Thank you for attention to this matter.
The total value of all foreign-owned U.S. Treasury securities is up 3.25% year over year in March 2026, and CNBC says Japan and China retreat from owning them
The big retreat was actually in the BRICS.
The value of Japanese-owned UST is up 5.4% year over year in March, lol.
Meanwhile the value of official China-owned is down 14.8% yoy, but China notoriously owns UST through stealth mechanisms, often in the UK and Belgium where ownership is up 19% and 12.9% yoy respectively.
Hard to say what's going on there with the most trusted name in nothing.
Month over month in March 2026 the total value of all foreign-owned is barely down 1.5%, which is neither unusual nor indicative of much of anything.
On a year over year basis, there were just five net "sellers" among the major foreign holders: China, Taiwan, Switzerland, India (down nearly 24%!), and Brazil (down 19%!).
Officially anyway, BRIC of the BRICS raising hard currency for some reason lol oil.
Japan, China lead foreign government retreat from U.S. Treasurys as Gulf War stokes currency fears
Monday, May 18, 2026
Senate Parliamentarian won't let Republicans spend $1 billion through phony reconciliation interpretation to rebuild East Wing destroyed by the MAGA drone in the Oval Office
Trump ballroom money in question after Senate parliamentarian rules. Thune says GOP will persist
... Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined Saturday that the provision, which included $220 million for security upgrades tied to the East Wing ballroom project, fell outside the jurisdiction of the Senate Judiciary Committee. ... The White House and Senate Republicans have framed the $1 billion as Secret Service funding for security upgrades, not direct construction money for the ballroom. ... MacDonough has already ruled against several other pieces of the measure, forcing GOP leaders to revise multiple provisions as they try to keep the package on track. ...
Mein Führer . . . I CAN WALK !!
Elon Musk compares his company’s work to that of Jesus
... “It has enabled people who have completely lost their brain-body connection to speak again … and we believe it will enable people to walk again,” Musk said of Neuralink’s brain-computer interface, or BCI, technologies.
... “Restoring control of people who are tetraplegics and restoring sight I think are pretty big deals,” Musk said on Monday at the conference, adding: “They’re sort of what I might call Jesus-level technologies.” ...
Sheriff says not to worry because no one has told him that he should . . . ROFLMAO
... Cuba has acquired 300 military drones ...
... thousands of Cuban veterans of Russia’s war with Ukraine have come home to tell their leaders of the effectiveness of drones on the battlefield. U.S. officials have learned more about Cuba’s drone program from Venezuela since removing Nicolás Maduro from power earlier this year ...
A Blue Wave is building in the 2026 Generic Congressional Vote with Democrats now +7.2 points
As usual politics at the extremes is less about voting for someone and more about voting against someone.
All you have to do most of the time is not piss off the voters.
Sunday, May 17, 2026
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (LA-4) was for the ban on insider stock trading in Congress before he was against it
My favorite part about his new position is that if we don't allow our representatives to make money somehow, we'll stop attracting talent to Washington, D.C.
You know, like Trump, whose primary talent is corruption.
💋
Silver is still up 6.14% year to date, gold 5.09% even as energy prices march higher
But SPX is up 8.02% ytd.
WTI is up 84.01% ytd.
VGENX is up 20.88% ytd.
Investment grade corporate securities:
VWESX is down 1.54% ytd.
VFICX is down 0.65% ytd.
VFSTX is up 0.27% ytd.
US Treasury securities:
VUSUX is down 2.52% ytd.
VFIUX is down 1.05% ytd.
VFIRX is up 0.16% ytd.
Inflation:
CPI (CPIAUCSL) is up 3.77% year over year in April.
PCE (PCEPI) is up 3.49% yoy in March.
Nominal Broad Dollar Index:
April: 119.03
1Q2026: 119.01
2025: 122.75
5Y: 119.94
GDP, Compound Annual Growth Rate
5Y: 7.031% nominal, 2.775% real
Daleep Singh: I personally don’t think the bond-vigilante trade will be alive very long
The bond market is flashing a warning over Iran. A veteran of energy geopolitics explains the risk
... A deal would have to be guaranteed by a trusted third party. There’s no trust at all between the U.S. and Tehran right now, because the bombs have been dropping every time they’ve sat down to negotiate. That’s where China comes in, and I’ll be interested to hear more details of what was said and agreed in Beijing [during Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping]. ...
You have got to be kidding me.
China is the primary beneficiary of the world's sanctioned oil.
Global oil will pick demand destruction and recession in order to save itself once visible supply falls closer to 6.8 billion barrels
Global oil stockpiles could hit record lows if Strait of Hormuz remains closed
... Inventories were near a decade high at just over 8 billion barrels at the end of February, Swiss bank UBS estimated in a Tuesday report. By end of April, stockpiles fell to 7.8 billion barrels, UBS analysts said.
Inventories will approach record lows of 7.6 billion barrels by end of May if demand remains the same month over month, the UBS analysts said. Inventories falling to that level would stress the supply chain, JPMorgan analysts said in an April 30 note.
Billions of barrels in inventory may sound like a lot but the reality is that only about 800 million barrels are available without straining the system, the JPMorgan analysts said. The rest is needed to keep pipelines and tanks filled at minimum levels so the supply chain operates efficiently, they said.
“Like blood pressure in the human body, the issue is circulation,” said Natasha Kaneva, JPMorgan’s head of global commodities strategy. “The system does not fail because oil disappears, it fails because the circulation network no longer has enough working volume.”
Oil inventories would fall to a critically low level of 6.8 billion barrels by September if Hormuz is still closed at that time, JPMorgan forecast. Product inventories would hit critical levels sooner in July or August, according to a forecast from Rapidan Energy.
The global economy would “seize up, with critical transportation infrastructure unable to source fuel at any price,” Rapidan analysts said in May 7 note.
But inventories are very unlikely to reach these critically low levels, the analysts said. Instead, oil and product prices will spike to curtail demand which will cause “a severe economic contraction.”
“That’s likely to happen before 3Q26,” the Rapidan analysts said.
Saturday, May 16, 2026
Democrat primary slugfest in Michigan for retiring US Senator Gary Peters' seat features three candidates unfamiliar to a third of Democrats, giving opportunistic Republican Mike Rogers another shot
... Each unofficially represents an ideological faction. El-Sayed is the Democratic Socialists’ candidate, backed by Senator Bernie Sanders and supportive of single-payer health care. McMorrow is the progressive populist, backed by Senator Elizabeth Warren and supportive of a public health insurance option. Stevens is the moderate, tacitly backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and, while nominally supportive of a public option, doesn’t lean into it nor mention it on her website’s issues page.
And as I covered last week, the three are divided on Israel. El-Sayed would end all military aid to Israel (in fact, he “opposes directly funding foreign militaries” everywhere). McMorrow would stop selling Israel offensive weapons and has the support of the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” J Street PAC. Stevens defines herself as a “proud pro-Israel Democrat,” and is backed by AIPAC PAC.
... Moreover, every poll taken pegs at least one-third of the primary electorate as undecided. The Glengariff Group poll shows at least 40 percent of Democrats “never heard” of any of them (for McMorrow, it’s 60 percent), and that number is probably higher among the general electorate. The more they attack each other, the more voters will be introduced to them in the worst possible way. ...
More.
Stevens is the obvious choice of Michigan voters who are put off by the extremism of the Democratic left. She will complement Michigan's other moderate Senator Elissa Slotkin and help Democrats speak with one clear voice for sensible policies for Michigan workers.
Only just discovered on May 10th, Chelyabinsk-size 15-35 meter Asteroid 2026 JH2 will fly by on Monday at only 56,000 miles
May 10th!
Yes, out of nowhere, the Sweet Meteor of Death will someday blow us all away without (much) warning, but not today.
From the story here:
... Asteroid 2026 JH2 was initially observed by the Mount Lemmon Survey in Arizona, which uses a 60-inch telescope to detect near-Earth objects like comets and asteroids. ...
Kevin Warsh wasn't sworn in as Fed chair on Friday and Powell is still in charge because Warsh has so many assets to unload to meet ethics requirements he couldn't get 'em all done on time lol
So the bond vigilantes threw a party and sold off, spiking yields across the board 1.44% on the day, throwing down the gauntlet at Warsh, daring him to cut in the face of all the chaos Trump is causing.
The 20-year soared to 5.14%.
Yields are up 2.8% in the aggregate since the beginning of the month.
6% inflation is knocking on the door.
Inflation rate projected to hit 6% in the second quarter, top economic forecasters say
Friday, May 15, 2026
Speaking of corruption, Trump makes Biden & Co., Clinton & Co., et alia, look like pikers
Democrats blast Trump over ‘slush fund’ in possible IRS lawsuit settlement
... “This administration is dripping with corruption from top to bottom, but rushing a settlement to steal $1.7 billion taxpayer dollars for a slush fund before a judge can toss your junk lawsuit would be among the most corrupt acts in American political history,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.
“This lawsuit has never been anything more than a shakedown of the American people by a crook president and his crook lawyers,” Wyden said.
Trump, his two eldest sons, and his family business sued the IRS and the Treasury Department in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida over the 2019 leak of the president’s tax returns. It was an unprecedented move that raised concerns about conflicts of interest at the time. ...
News of the potential settlement comes ahead of a May 20 deadline set by U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams, who asked the Justice Department and Trump’s legal team to explain whether the case with the president on both sides can even be heard by a federal court.
″(A)lthough President Trump avers that he is bringing this lawsuit in his personal capacity, he is the sitting president and his named adversaries are entities whose decisions are subject to his direction,” Williams wrote in a court filing in April.
“It is unclear to this Court whether the Parties are sufficiently adverse to each other so as to satisfy” the constitutional requirement that federal cases only adjudicate cases or controversies. ...
Trump cares as little for freedom in Taiwan as he does in Ukraine
Trump told Xi ‘I don’t talk about’ whether U.S. would defend Taiwan from China
Biden meanwhile publicly committed to the defense of Taiwan right out of the gate in 2021 after a U.S. freedom of navigation exercise in the South China Sea by the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group in late January, and multiple times thereafter in 2021, 2022, and 2024.
Trump is truly disgraceful.
Barron's/AFP, Feb 5, 2021:
... The new US administration has said its commitment to Taiwan is "rock-solid," with officials in Washington signalling that they will not tolerate any expansionist moves by Beijing. ...
Hey, when does Starmer resign anyway?
... Britain’s government bonds have the highest yields in the G7. ...
There is almost nothing Athenian about China, nor Spartan about the United States
But here we are.
Does THE GRAUNIAD even know that Sparta won that war?
Does Xi?
Meanwhile "Make America Great Again" handed our adversaries the rhetorical cudgel of decline wielded by Xi against Trump.
America is great when it stands for human freedom, something Trump is too shallow to grasp. The very word strikes terror into the hearts of the Chicoms, and is our greatest weapon against them.
But under Trump America has betrayed freedom in Ukraine, and acted more like imperial Athens in the Persian Gulf than like Sparta.
The attack on Iran is looking more and more like the failed Sicilian Expedition every day.
Aftermath: Trump Is Wrecking the U.S. Military
If Xi wants to win, he'll act more like Sparta and let the real Athens destroy itself.
Honda to reverse EV missteps at a cost of $9 billion amid lost focus on its famed gasoline engines
Honda shares rise over 7% as investors shrug off first operating loss in nearly 70 years
... Honda swung to an operating loss of 414.3 billion yen ($2.61 billion) for the fiscal year ending March, compared to an operating profit of 1.2 trillion yen the year prior. Provisions made for its ailing electric vehicle business and related investments, competition from its Chinese rivals, as well as a U.S. tariff impact of 346.9 billion yen weighed on its earnings.
... As part of its efforts to reorganize its EV business, the automaker said it will cancel market launches and development of some EV models initially planned for production in North America. The Japanese automaker said it expects the restructure of its EV business to cost over $9 billion.
... Honda engines used by Aston Martin were found to be causing battery failures and in January the Japanese automaker was slapped with a lawsuit in Canada over a defect in the 1.5L turbocharged engine in three Honda models. ...
The good news is you can still get the 2-liter four cylinder gasoline non-turbo engine in the base Civic, MSRP $26,345, with a theoretical highway range of 508 miles.
Thursday, May 14, 2026
From JMIC Update 45: Bab-el-Mandeb Strait tanker transits average 13.42/day May 7-13, 2026
Strait of Hormuz 1.57/day.
BAM tanker transits aren't even up to 2022's average of 30/day. The crisis of the oil trade is not being significantly ameliorated by Red Sea operations.
Estimates continue to put 5 million barrels per day leaving Yanbu, much of it heading to buyers in east Asia.
Fujairah in the UAE exports shy of 2 million barrels per day, also to the east.
Iran's exports in April are said to be shy of 1 million barrels per day.
Kuwait exported nothing.
Iraq exported maybe 0.131 million barrels per day.
So 8.1 million barrels per day in April?
21.0 million barrels per day left the region in 2022.
Update 5/18/26:
IEA estimates 8 mb/day bypassing Strait of Hormuz, flows still far below pre-war levels.
Herr Kurt Schlichter's hit piece on Thomas Massie says Massie married a leftist after his long-time wife died in 2024, when she was actually a staffer for Senator Rand Paul
 |
| "No heat" Massie's 2021 Christmas Card Photo |
And Rand Paul once again strongly endorses Massie's re-election.
Good Riddance to the Awful Thomas Massie
... Before his wife sadly died young a couple of years ago, he was content to be a fringe weirdo with bad hair and no heat. Once she tragically passed away, he visited a hairstylist, married a leftist staffer 20 years his junior, and decided he needed to broaden his horizons, which meant helping the Democrats and shafting the GOP more openly than before. ...
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
Kevin Warsh confirmed as Fed chair 54-45 by the US Senate, takes over from Powell on Friday
Kevin Warsh wins Senate confirmation as the next Federal Reserve chair
... In the most divisive vote ever for a Fed chair, Warsh, 56, won confirmation to take over for Jerome Powell, who has served in the top leadership position since 2018 and whose term will expire Friday.
The Senate voted 54-45 to confirm Warsh, ending a months long saga that began in the summer of 2025 and included an extensive search for Powell’s successor. The vote was almost completely along party lines, with only Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. John Fetterman crossing over to vote for Warsh, who becomes the 11th Fed chair of the modern banking era.
Powell will stay on at the Fed as he has two years left in his term as governor. ...
CNBC doesn't really want to talk about how bad April's increase in wholesale prices was, doesn't mention the year over year increase to core, stripping out food and energy, at 5.2%
Wholesale inflation jumps 6% in April on annual basis, biggest increase since 2022
... The producer price index rose a seasonally adjusted 1.4% for the month, much higher than the 0.5% Dow Jones consensus forecast and the upwardly revised 0.7% March increase, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. This was the largest monthly gain since March 2022.
On an annual basis, the index was up 6%, the biggest increase since December 2022.
Excluding food and energy, the core PPI accelerated 1%, compared with the 0.4% estimate. ...
While much of the inflation move has been attributed to the war and President Donald Trump’s tariffs that were introduced a year ago, the PPI data shows the price pressures were broad-based. ...
I'll say.
Looks to me like producers giving us all the middle finger.
I expect new record high corporate profits.
Adjusted for consumer price index inflation since October 2019, a traditional American breakfast should cost you 29.4% more in April 2026, instead it's 54.9% more!
29.4% more is bad enough, right?
The ingredients for a traditional American breakfast in April 2026, adjusted for consumer price index inflation since October 2019, should cost $29.91.
Instead they cost $35.79, $23.11 plus 54.9%.
Menu: Bacon and eggs, whole wheat toast with butter, coffee with milk and sugar, and a glass of orange juice.
The Biden high for all this was $33.20 in January 2023.
The all-time high to date was in March 2025 under Trump at $37.67.
The April 2026 Trump price is still 7.8% higher than the Biden high three-plus years ago.
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Power prices did not climb 61%: The consumer price index for electricity was up 6.1% year over year, and the average price of electricity was up 7.2% year over year
The Bloomberg headline linked to by Drudge meant that the rate of inflation for the consumer price electricity index at 6.1% year over year was 61% higher than the overall consumer price index rate of inflation of 3.8% year over year.
A different measure, the average price of electricity, climbed 7.2% year over year to a new high of 19.4 cents per kilowatt-hour.
It will be of little comfort to many to note that it could be worse.
While the price of a barrel of oil has far outrun inflation over the long haul, electricity has not. At 4.6 cents in November 1978, its inflation adjusted price today would be 22.73 cents.
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