Friday, August 23, 2019

Correct take: Exuberance about retail (AP) leaves out that consumers are borrowing big to finance it


Michael Anton rightly rejects birthright citizenship


Rick Scott's hat is too small


Clueless AP article calls US economy resilient when it's been in the rut they fear is coming since 2007

The compound annual growth rate of real GDP since 2007 has been WORSE than for the same time frame of the Great Depression, yet AP is completely oblivious. The upside is when things really go to hell they'll still be.


Barely a year after most of the world’s major countries were enjoying an unusual moment of shared prosperity, the global economy may be at risk of returning to the rut it tumbled into after the financial crisis of 2007-2009. ...

The U.S. economy, now enjoying a record-breaking 10-year expansion, still shows resilience. American consumers, whose spending accounts for 70% of U.S. economic activity, have driven the growth.

Retail sales have risen sharply so far this year, with people shopping online and spending more at restaurants. Their savings rates are also the highest since 2012, which suggests that consumers aren’t necessarily stretching themselves too thin, according to the Commerce Department.

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Get off me!, she yelled at Boris in the wee hours: New UK PM seems to like to get on things in Paris, too


If this were a booming economy this wouldn't be happening to housing starts


Current allocations to retail and institutional money funds are up 22.2% vs. the 2012-2018 average

Current allocations come to $3 trillion vs. $2.454 trillion on average 2012-2018.

Cash in institutional money funds is up big, too, to March 2010 levels


Chicken or egg: Does going to cash cause recessions?!


Foreign holdings of US Treasury securities hit $6.636 trillion in June 2019, driving down yields

Nobody asks why US debt securities are so popular.

People like Jeffrey Snider of Alhambra know why, but nobody listens to him.

The logic of thorough-going materialism: Since humans are nothing but animals, we might as well eat each other

Now that all objections to organ transplantation as a form of cannibalism have been effectively silenced, we're going all the way.

As Ann Coulter likes to say, Our new country's going to be great! 


Meanwhile benchmark revisions to the quick and dirty monthly Establishment Survey indicate 501,000 jobs have to be SUBTRACTED through March 2019

That is expected to bring down 2018 job creation to roughly 181,000 monthly instead of 223,000.

I say, so what? 223,000 monthly wasn't indicative of a jobs boom anyway.

Jobs numbers under Trump are like Trump Steaks, overcooked.

Jobless claims in today's report are lower in all three categories than a year ago

Not by much but they are, so no evidence of a reversal this week as seen previously, which would be concerning during the high season for jobs.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

King of Israel is all about the Benjamins, baby


That's funny, that's what Jesus said

But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

-- Matthew 15:24

Little known astounding fact: Joe Biden is secretly on Rush Limbaugh's payroll, providing him with all his facts and figures


More climate BS: July 2019 hottest month ever recorded


If that were true we should at the very least have felt the residual effects of that even if local conditions were not record breaking, but we didn't.

Here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, maximum temperature in July 2019 never even reached the mean maximum, which is 94 degrees F.  We had zero, zip, nada days at or above the mean max.

Contrast that with the hottest July on record here going back to before the year 1900:  July 1921. Maximum temperature that month hit 100, which was the 9th highest maximum on record and one of the ten days that month when maximum temperature was at or above the mean max.

Average temperature was a record 79.7 in July 1921, with cooling degree days setting a record at 465. July 2019 didn't even come close to these records. Average temperature ranked 15th at 75.4, and cooling degree days ranked 14th at 332.

The July with the highest maximum temperature in Grand Rapids was July 1936, when a record 108 was recorded, one of nine days that month at or above the mean max of 94. That month ranked 5th for cooling degree days at 390, and 5th for average temperature at 77.3.

Apparently everyone has already forgotten July 2012, the second hottest July on record here in Grand Rapids. It ranked 2nd for cooling degree days at 449, 2nd for average temperature at 79.2, and second for maximum temperature at 104, with eleven days that July at or above the mean max of 94. But July 2019 couldn't hold a candle to July 2012 for hot conditions, yet somehow it was the hottest ever . . . everywhere else. 

The fact of the matter is the hottest Julys in Grand Rapids are a phenomenon of the distant past, with nine of the top fourteen for cooling degree days occurring before World War II. July 2019 ranked merely 14th in that list.

Ten of the top fifteen for average temperature also occurred before World War II. July 2019 ranked merely 15th in that list.

For maximum temperature July 2019 ranked tied for something like 72nd position.

Hottest July evah. Give me a break!