Wednesday, April 30, 2025
ADP private payrolls miss the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 120k new jobs by 48%
Real GDP shrank 0.3% in 1Q2025
Shrink, shrank, shrunk.
U.S. economy shrunk 0.3% in the first quarter as Trump policy uncertainty weighed on businesses
... fueled by an unexpected rise in imports as companies and consumers sought to get ahead of the Trump tariffs ...
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Popular support for Canada's Conservatives was actually tops in 2021 at 5.7 million votes, but in 2025 falls to second place at 8.06 million
In neither case however did Conservatives gain enough seats to form a government.
The Conservative Pierre Poilievre loses this election to the Liberal Mark Carney.
After Liberal Justin Trudeau resigned as PM in January, Carney became Liberal Party leader and PM in March, and promptly eliminated the consumer carbon tax ahead of this election, taking away a key issue of the Conservatives.
That, and Trump's hostility toward Canada, made this election outcome a fait accompli.
The US Navy lost an F/A-18 and its tractor off the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier evading a Houthi missile in the Red Sea yesterday according to reports, but that's not the real story
This story, for example, says nothing about evading a Houthi missile.
Fighter jet slips off carrier hangar deck in Red Sea, one minor injury
And is this even the Truman?
I mean, that's an F-35 going in the drink, not the same jet.
You can't trust anybody these days apparently.
Tomorrow is a big day for economic reports: Core pce inflation and 1Q2025 real GDP
The consensus estimate for tomorrow's core pce inflation number is 2.6% year over year in March, and 0.1% month over month. In February the actual numbers were 2.8% year over year and 0.4% month over month.
The consensus estimate for tomorrow's real GDP estimate is 0.4% vs. 2.4% actual the previous quarter. Yes, you read that right, 0.4%. GDPNow's final read on 1Q2025 out this morning is . . . -2.7%.
Yikes.
The ADP employment change will also be reported. Consensus is for +108,000 vs. +155,000 actual the previous month.
Nonfarm payrolls comes out on Friday. Consensus is for +130,000 for April vs. +228,000 actual in March.
Monday, April 28, 2025
Fareed Zakaria: Trump uses an unprecedented eight national emergency declarations for his own end run around the constitution, the Congress, and the courts
... Trump has declared eight national emergencies in his first 100 days, more than any other president. ...
Invoking an emergency has come to mean that the president can bypass Congress, intimidate courts, and run roughshod over normal procedures, even civil liberties. And while the current number is striking, it’s not a Trumpian innovation. Presidents have become addicted to emergency powers, unlike many other countries. The U.S. Constitution says nothing about how to declare or end an emergency. This has allowed presidents to organically assume a wide range of powers. This usually happened during wartime. ...
Today, Americans are living under dozens of ongoing national emergencies, mostly tied to foreign policy like sanctions. The oldest standing one, targeting Iran, dates back to the Carter administration. Others come from the post-9/11 era, when Congress granted the executive branch sweeping new powers, all in the name of national security. Both parties have used emergency powers to serve their broader agendas. In 2022, President Joe Biden attempted to forgive student loan debt by using an emergency authority related to the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
More.
Like failing to establish a formula for the continued growth of representation, thus unwittingly concentrating power in an oligarchic Congress by default, the constitution's silence about emergencies is yet one more example of the founders' inability to imagine every which way one branch might try to exploit it, which is an increasingly pressing problem in our increasingly illiberal society.
Sunday, April 27, 2025
Saturday, April 26, 2025
I worked for a guy once who everyday wore a blue suit without fail
I remember he officiated at a funeral once, and yep, he wore a blue suit.
Even when I visited him at his home he was wearing a blue suit.
More remarkably, though, on pay day once a month my boss would go to the bank, take out a wad of cash, and then pay his mortgage in cash, walk to the phone company and pay in cash, and walk to the utility company and pay in cash.
He'd also pay me in cash.
Then he'd walk to the hotel bar with his friends for the evening and pay in cash.
He paid for everything in cash, unlike this guy.
Standards have really declined.
Friday, April 25, 2025
This week's US Treasury auctions indicated the opposite of rising interest rates
As usual the alarmists and doomsayers are . . . alarmists and doomsayers.
Demand for US debt is steady and strong this week:
3MO at 4.225% average vs. 4.225% previously
6MO at 4.05 vs. 4.06 previously
2Y at 3.795 vs. 3.984 previously
5Y at 3.995 vs. 4.1 previously
7Y at 4.123 vs. 4.233 previously.
Yields across the curve last night averaged 4.240, down from 4.261 a week ago, below the Daily Fed Funds Rate at 4.33.
The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow model has been in the toilet since the end of February, latest snapshot for 1Q2025 is -2.5%
The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2025 is -2.5 percent on April 24, down from -2.2 percent on April 17.
More.
The BEA's first estimate of first quarter real GDP is scheduled for release on April 30th.
Thursday, April 24, 2025
A Trump-appointed judge has ordered another Venezuelan wrongly deported to El Salvador returned to the United States
... U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher in Baltimore on Wednesday ruled that removing him without a chance to complete his asylum petition or challenge his deportation violated the settlement agreement. Cristian, and any other person who had been removed in violation of the settlement agreement, should be returned, she said. ...
More.
I don't normally pay any attention to the left's critique of the right as misogynist, but Breitbart's John Nolte changes my mind
... By politely and factually shoving all that disgrace in their smug faces, Tim Pool diminished and embarrassed the media elite, which is crucial in our noble crusade to someday enjoy the lamentations of their women. ...
More.
The cruelty is indeed the point of MAGA.