Sunday, July 12, 2026
Saturday, July 11, 2026
The first half of 2026 is falling far short of a new golden age for workers, and isn't even as good as 2019
The worst indicator is full time employment, which is running more than 2 points behind Trump's best showing in the second half of 2019. Just 48.65% had a full time job in 1H2026, and the high pre-Great Recession levels look more unachievable than ever. It is summer time and this is when we should be feeling the purported boom most acutely and we are not.
On a similar semiannual average basis, nearly 400k more workers than at the lows in 2019 want to work but are so discouraged they have dropped out. The spread between June 2026 and October 2019 is nearly 600k.
The overall number of unemployed in the first half of 2026 is 1.633 million higher than it was in the second half of 2019, 7.413 million vs. 5.780 million. The level averaged 7.6 million when Trump was elected in 2016.
The broadest measure of unemployment, the U6RATE, is 8%. In the second half of 2019 it was 6.9%, the lowest on record to the time, but Biden beat that in 2022/2023. Are we really not ever going to break Biden's two-time record low of 6.7%?
Was that the golden age?
The thing I worry about most is initial and continuing claims for unemployment. They are both on a run at historic lows.
How much longer can they keep it going like this?
Friday, July 10, 2026
Ukraine can now target just about any Russian fuel tanker at sea and any Russian oil refinery on land whenever it wants, which lately has been daily
Zelenskyy is destroying Russia's ability to make war.
Too bad Donald Trump never does that.
Ukraine escalates attacks on tankers near Crimea as Russian fuel shortages bite
... Ukraine’s drone force commander, Robert Brovdi, known as Magyar, said via Telegram that 14 Russian ships were hit in the Sea of Azov on Thursday evening, taking the number of Russian vessels stuck by Ukrainian drones to 35 over the last 96 hours. CNBC could not independently verify this report.
... Ukraine has frequently targeted high-profile oil refineries in major cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg in recent weeks as part of a sustained push to cut off Russia’s energy revenues.
Earlier this week, Ukraine marked what appeared to be one of the country’s deepest attacks on Russian territory in the war so far.
Plumes of black smoke were seen billowing from a key oil refinery in the city of Omsk on Tuesday, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to declare that the country’s upgraded drone capabilities have put Siberia “within reach.”
The Omsk facility is situated nearly 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles) from Ukrainian territory and close to Russia’s border with Kazakhstan. ...
In the Michigan U.S. Senate race, progressive Abdul El-Sayed is only half the fascist you think he is, says he's for only 50% public ownership of AI, not 100% lol
O.M.G.
AI, data center fears could be key in closely watched Michigan Democratic Senate primary
... earlier this month, he unveiled a multi-pronged policy to rein-in AI that includes public ownership of the technology, an AI dividend paid to the public, mandatory divestiture of AI developers from major tech companies and a new tax on AI automation.
... McMorrow and other critics have questioned the feasibility of El-Sayed’s proposal, which in addition to 50% public ownership and direct payments to Americans includes expanded unemployment benefits and the establishment of a Food and Drug Administration-style safety testing agency within the federal government to test emerging AI technology.
... El-Sayed brushed off those claims. The farther left plan would be complete ownership, rather than the 50% he is proposing, he countered. ...
Thursday, July 9, 2026
Middle East tanker transits July 2-8, 2026 (I think)
The last two tables in the JMICs have June here and there when they should have July.
JMIC 69 is another one that can't make up its mind what month it is.
SoH: 14.9/day vs. 70 normal
E: 8.6/day
W: 6.3/day
BAM: 13.1/day vs. 30 normal
SE: 6.4/day
NW: 6.7/day
First time claims for unemployment on an average semiannual basis have been below 250k for 79% of the time since 2016 through 1H2026
7.5 years vs. 3.0 years in the late 1960s and the first half of 1973.
Unprecedented in the history of the metric.
30-year mortgages have averaged above 6.00% since August 2022
It will be four consecutive years in September 2026.
Some people think it is significant that U.S. commercial stocks of crude oil increased a little bit week over week to 411.4 million barrels as of 7/3/2026
Well, I don't.
Whenever U.S. commercial companies buy oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve at auction, those barrels are subtracted from line three but are added to line two.
It's more complicated than that because some oil might be stored temporarily, or refined into other products which means it shows up on other lines, or it gets exported and shows up there.
The point is sales from SPR distort the U.S. picture, IF those sales are purchased by U.S. commercial companies.
And for March through early July, U. S. commercial companies have purchased AT LEAST 52 million barrels from SPR.
That has distorted the true state of U.S. commercial stocks from week to week throughout the period.
Meanwhile, speaking of distortions . . . where did they get the product for this?
White House touts launch of 25 Freedom Fuel gas stations
... “The FIRST Freedom Fuel Network gas station has LANDED in Philadelphia, lowering the price at the pump to $3.47 for our 47th President,” the White House wrote on the social platform X on Tuesday. ... Twenty of the stations are located in Pennsylvania, while five are in New Jersey, according to the Freedom Fuel network’s website. A White House official told The Hill the Freedom Fuel Network is a private company and did not receive subsidies from the administration. ...
Harold Meyerson: Late-stage American capitalism is the father of the fascist Chinese Party-State
Except Meyerson can't bring himself to use the word fascist, let alone Party-State.
"State capitalist power" is his polite euphemism for fascist power, which leftists who want to be taken seriously still must use apparently, ever since George Orwell said in 1944 that fascism had become a meaningless term, you know, like the words man and woman.
He stops short, too, of saying that there is something suicidal built into the West.
The conservative Oswald Spengler identified that something as Christian theology. He said it was the grandmother of Bolshevism, which is probably why Meyerson doesn't mention it! Don't wanna upset the fascists, the Christians, AND the true believers all at the same time.
But the fact remains that the heirs of Christianity in America have sold the rope to the Chicoms which they will use to hang our children after they are finished impoverishing them.
Meanwhile Utopia still exists for Meyerson, in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, cold, wet, snowy, and dark NATO nations which rely on the American nuclear umbrella for their security.
... there is no such communist power [like the USSR] today.
There’s China, a Leninist-verging-on-tech-infused-Stalinist state capitalist power, but it boasts no virtually ideological adherents either in the States or abroad, and certainly not within the Democratic Socialists of America. It does have spies, and thugs who intimidate dissidents in the Chinese diaspora, but it lacks any support within the actual American left. To be sure, China’s rise to economic world power was fueled by offshoring American companies, but they went to China at the prompting of Wall Street as a way to boost their profit margins, Chinese labor then being dirt cheap. In other words, it was our leading capitalists, rather than any American socialists or communists, who sold out the industrial Midwest. ...
Wednesday, July 8, 2026
Democrats force out Graham Platner like they forced out Joe Biden
Platner quits Maine Senate race; Democrats set to pick new nominee
... “We did it the right way, we built a campaign, we engaged in electoral politics, we motivated people, we banded together,” he said. “We did it the way we are told we are supposed to make change, and we won, and now they are not going to let us have it. Not if it’s me.” ...
Haley Stevens after debate with Abdul El-Sayed: I’m also not a millionaire like Abdul is, he won’t release his tax returns
It's always great to see the pretensions of progressives skewered.
Democratic Senate candidates sling mud in post-debate spin room
... “Standing up for Michiganders when their jobs were on the line during the Great Recession, standing up for Michiganders when their jobs were on the line yet again during COVID and the COVID pandemic and securing our manufacturing supply chain. I work to get things done. I am not trying to be a celebrity or famous or to sell a book or to push a podcast. I’m also not a millionaire like Abdul is. I am a hard-working gal who rolls up my sleeves, fights like heck for Michigan and delivers for us.” ...
Well yeah, but it wasn't for Bernie!
International socialism and National socialism have now split over a woman.
Spare me your growing concerns about Mitch, Tom Kean was missing in action for four months, missing more than 140 votes in a U.S. House with a GOP majority margin of just five
Tom Kean wasn't in the headlines every damn day.
Mitch hasn't been Senate Majority Leader for 18 months and counting.
If Mitch is absent the Vice President can stand in if there is a tie.
The Mitch-haters on Elon Musk's X are vile and ugly.
Mitch McConnell’s health concerns grow amid 4th week in hospital with few details from aides
GOP Rep. Tom Kean says depression diagnosis caused months-long absence from Congress
Tuesday, July 7, 2026
Middle East tanker transits June 30-July 6, 2026 per JMIC Update 068: Strait of Hormuz 16.4/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 13.4/day
SoH E: 9.0/day
SoH W: 7.4/day
BAM SE: 7.0/day
BAM NW: 6.4/day
... Metrics are derived from U.S. NCAGS (U.S.-facilitated SoH transits), S&P Maritime, and SeaVision data, and exclude vessels calling Iranian ports adjacent to the Strait of Hormuz. S&P and SeaVision reporting thresholds apply to vessels exceeding 1,000 deadweight tons ...
The most important thing commanding Mad King Ludwig's attention right now is renewing his threats against our friends in Greenland and NATO, not that our enemy Iran just attacked four ships in the Omani corridor in the last 24 hours
His brain is a bucket of eels.
Trump renews Greenland threats at NATO summit, says U.S. could remove troops from Europe
Oil prices rise more than 2% after attacks on tankers in Strait of Hormuz
UKMTO is reporting that three attacks were reported, not four.
I'm so confused
Libertarian Bill King spends 90% of his essay on the Fourth of July telling us how joyous, proud, fundamentally good, commonsensical, and apolitical it all was, only to end it by saying a political reckoning can't come soon enough lol.
Here.
OK Bill.
Monday, July 6, 2026
Silver and gold and stocks, oh my
And the winner is . . . stonks.
 |
| $5 July 1996 to $63 July 2026 = 8.8% CAGR nominal over 30 years, no dividends (cost to secure unknown) |
 |
| $382 July 1996 to $4,173 July 2026 = 8.3% CAGR nominal over 30 years, no dividends (cost to secure unknown) |
 |
| $644.07 July 1996 to $7,450.03 June 2026 = 10.46% average per annum with dividend reinvestment, 8.53% without, nominal (VFIAX current expense ratio 0.04% vs. 0.72% average industry) |
Sunday, July 5, 2026
Liberty literally cracked up in 1846, fifteen years before the whole country did
... No one recorded when or why the
Liberty Bell first cracked, but the most likely explanation is that a
narrow split developed in the early 1840s after nearly 90 years of hard
use. In 1846, when the city decided to repair the bell prior to George
Washington's birthday holiday (February 23), metal workers widened the
thin crack to prevent its farther spread and restore the tone of the
bell using a technique called "stop drilling". The wide "crack" in the
Liberty Bell is actually the repair job! Look carefully and you'll see
over 40 drill bit marks in that wide "crack". But, the repair was not
successful. The Public Ledger newspaper reported that the repair failed
when another fissure developed. This second crack, running from the
abbreviation for "Philadelphia" up through the word "Liberty", silenced
the bell forever. No one living today has heard the bell ring freely
with its clapper, but computer modeling provides some clues into the sound of the Liberty Bell. ...
Middle East tanker transits June 28-July 4, 2026 per JMIC Update 067: Strait of Hormuz 15.4/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 14.0/day
SoH E: 7.0/day
SoH W: 8.4/day
BAM SE: 7.3/day
BAM NW: 6.7/day
Saturday, July 4, 2026
When Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama said You Didn't Build That, they were channeling that arch communist Benjamin Franklin
All Property, indeed, except the Savage’s temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention.
Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it.
All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of:
But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition.
He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages.
He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.
-- Benjamin Franklin to Robert Morris, quoted here
Friday, July 3, 2026
Middle East tanker transits June 25-July 1, 2026 per JMIC Update 066: Strait of Hormuz 17.1/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 15.3/day
SoH E: 9.6/day
SoH W: 7.6/day
BAM SE: 8.3/day
BAM NW: 7.0/day
... overall volumes remain uncertain due to AIS-off practices and inconsistent reporting ...
I'll bet he ate Hitler Ice Cream when he was a kid
...This is not gulag socialism ...
Yeah, we know, it's final solution socialism.
It's not job seekers giving up, it's Baby Boomers exiting the stage
... in June the biggest plunge came from what is defined as “prime age” workers, or those between the ages of 25 and 54. That rate fell 0.6 percentage point to 83.3%, its lowest since December 2023.
“Looking at the statistics now, that argument doesn’t hold up so well,” North said of the retirement and immigration rationale. “I hate to use the word ‘alarming,’” he added, but said the numbers are cause for concern. ...
Alarmed? Really now. This misses the forest for a single tree.
Percent change for the labor participation rate for 25-54s is UP .1 and .2 for 1H2026 and 2H2025 respectively.
For 55s+ it's DOWN 0.8 and .2 respectively.
The 55s+ metric has had NINE semiannual declines since 2019 vs. only three for 25-54s.
The former is bleeding participation, while the latter is holding its own.
You can't really appreciate this unless you measure the employment of each group as a percentage of its own population level, from which you can determine how many of them are not working now vs. then.
The number of 55s+ working in 1H2026 and 2H2019 is nearly the same, 37.8 million and 37.6 million respectively, but the former represents only 36% of the group, while the latter represents 39.3%.
That means that the net additions to the no-longer-working side of the total population of the group since 2019 for 55s+ is now 9.193 million, but doing the same exercise for 25-54s yields a statistically insignificant 215k.
Meanwhile employment as a percentage of its own population for 25-54s, unlike for 55s+, has been and remains stronger now than at any point since the dotcom bubble, averaging 80.64% for forty-two consecutive months.
The peak year individuals of the Baby Boom, 1957, turned 62 in 2019, when employment of 55s+ naturally peaked too, while the individuals of the final year of the Baby Boom, 1964, turn 62 now in 2026.
We are witnessing the Baby Boom roll over and disappear from the labor statistics.
Thursday, July 2, 2026
The foreign born population works at a rate of 63.26% in June 2026, the native born at only 58.25%
Foreign born workers numbered 30.725 million, native born 131.997 million.
To get native born employment to 63.26% of their own population in June 2026 would require an extra 11.351 million native born suddenly to get jobs.
The best estimates of current illegal alien presence in the United States range between 11 million and 13.7 million.
The percentage of the native born population working continues to fall because it is aging. The share of the 55s and over who work continues to fall, now down to 35.77% of their cohort.
There are just 26 million people aged 25-54 in the United States who are currently not working. That's where they'd have to come from, a tall order.
Labor's share of business income made another new low in 1Q2026, the fourth consecutive quarterly decline
Meanwhile Applesauce Brains II:
Trump says ‘everybody’s profiting’ from recent market rallies — but it’s mostly the 1%
... The bottom 50% of households collectively hold just 1% of that stock and mutual fund wealth.
... According to a Gallup Poll often cited by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, 38% of American households have no exposure to equities at all.
... As of the first quarter of 2026, the top 1% owned half of corporate equities and mutual fund shares, or about $27.64 trillion, according to the most recent Federal Reserve data, while the top 10% of Americans hold more than 87%.
Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of households collectively held just 1% — or $590 billion — of that stock and mutual fund wealth.
“Half of Americans effectively own no stocks,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s. And “to be in the top 1%, you need to make over $750,000 annually.” ...
The Golden Age of eating but not working: A record 105.808 million not-in-labor-force in Donald Trump's America in June 2026, Dumb Ass Unemployment Rate still higher than at any point in his first term when Limbaugh stopped talking about it
The Donald Trump-Rush Limbaugh Dumb Ass Unemployment Rate in June 2026 is 38.14%.
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