Mad King Ludwig fires BLS commissioner in a fit of rage over his bad jobs numbers, blaming the messenger

I don't recall Obama firing anybody at BLS in 2011 when there were ZERO jobs created in August.

 

 

Banana republic stuff from the Banana Republican.

Trump is unfit to be president.

 

Trump fires commissioner of labor statistics after weaker-than-expected jobs figures slam markets

 

... “I can’t believe what I just saw,” said Peter Mallouk, president and chief investment officer of Creative Planning. Trump’s social media post seemed like a parody or satire at first, Mallouk said.

 

“This is not healthy,” he added. “We can’t have a set of numbers come out and fire somebody that served under numerous administrations in various roles because you don’t like the numbers.”

William Beach, a 2017 Trump appointee and McEntarfer’s immediate predecessor at BLS, also sharply criticized her firing.

“The totally groundless firing of Dr. Erika McEntarfer, my successor as Commissioner of Labor Statistics at BLS, sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the statistical mission of the Bureau,” Beach posted on X.

“This escalates the President’s unprecedented attacks on the independence and integrity of the federal statistical system,” Beach added in a statement. “The President seeks to blame someone for unwelcome economic news.” ...

This is the same administration which complains the Fed is building a palace for itself

 

Limbaugh-Trump dumb ass unemployment rate 37.3% in July 2025, near record 103.4 million eating but not working

 

Look at that flight to US Treasury safety

 

Trump unleashes sweeping new tariffs in a blow to global trade

 

U.S. added just 73,000 jobs in July and numbers for prior months were revised much lower

 

 

 

Mr. Big Stuff has cut just 84,000 federal jobs since January through July, barely 2.8%

 

There have been just five Julys since 2008 when full-time employment exceeded 50% of population, and yep, you guessed it, July 2025 ain't one of 'em

Full time as a percentage of population was 52.32% in July 2008,

50.66% in July 2018 (ten years later!),

50.98% in July 2019,

50.69% in July 2022,

50.74% in July 2023,

50.26% in July 2024, and . . .

. . . 49.72% in July 2025. 

 

Ahead of the jobs report tomorrow, the 4-week moving average of continued claims for unemployment is up about 86,000 in the monthly average in July from April

 The June and July levels above 1.9 million haven't been seen since November 2021.

 

I literally laughed out loud

 

Harris Skips CA Governor Run. She Can Skip President, Too

Ed Kilgore, NY Magazine

 

... a two-time loser ...             

 

Ouch. 

As bad as inflation has been since the pandemic, imagine living with core pce inflation above 3% year over year for twenty-six consecutive years 1967-1992

 If they lived through that, we can live through this, and we will.

 

 

Here's the latest chart for grand total foreign holdings of US Treasury securities 2000-2025

 I don't remember why I started doing this chart in May of whenever it was, but I stuck with it over the years.

It was probably some nutball during the Great Financial Crisis screaming that foreigners were dumping U. S. Treasury securities and we were all doomed!

The nutballs have been saying that for a loooooooooooooong time.

 

These are the raw, as-reported numbers at the time, and do not incorporate any subsequent revisions.

In May 2025, 43% of the over $9 trillion in outstanding value for foreign held UST was "Official", that is, by governments. And 89.8% of that 43% is invested in longer term Notes and Bonds.

Year over year in May the value of what is owned by foreigners is up a whopping 11.25%. 

Many people in addition to governments around the world are banking on the full faith and credit of the United States because they can't really bank on their own governments.

And that's a fact, Jack. 

 

 

The Fed was right yesterday, voting 9-2 to make no change to interest rates, as core pce inflation comes in at 2.79% year over year in June, a tick up from May's 2.75%

 Core personal consumption expenditures year over year have been stuck in a range of 2.78% year over year for eighteen long months.

This is shaping up to become the regrettable new normal.

Core pce had averaged just 1.50% year over year for twelve years from 2009-2020 inclusive. The rate has been 85% higher than that for a year and a half now on an average basis.

The 2.78% rate is but little lower than the 2024 average of 2.81%, and the 2.75% average for the first six months of 2025 still rounds up to 2.8%.

You remember 2024. Joe Biden was president, and so far in 2025 he might as well still be.

Inflation is the worst tax. Unfortunately it's the Uniparty's policy.

 

  

Trump's $170 billion tax hike on the American consumer

 The seasonally-adjusted annual rate of Trump's tariffs leaped from $96 billion in 1Q to $266 billion in 2Q.

The federal government farts through $20 billion every day, so this annualized tariff revenue goes Poof in less than two weeks, matching just 3.6% of federal outlays.

The numbskulls in the US Senate like Josh Hawley want to redistribute these tax revenues in the form of rebate checks to the taxpayers.

Wouldn't it have been easier and more efficient and more fair not to have taxed us in the first place?

Note that Donald Trump's Bureau of Economic Analysis, run by Howard Lutnick, still must call this what it is, taxes on imports lol, despite what his Treasury Secretary was still saying in June:

Bessent claims tariffs aren’t taxes.

 

 

 

America still isn't booming

 

 The real GDP report is out and it looks pretty good at 3% for the first estimate for 2Q2025, especially in comparison with the -0.5% result for 1Q.

If only it were so.

From the second quarter of 2017, the year when Trump's tax reform became law on December 22nd, until now real GDP has grown at a compound annual rate of just 2.456%. For the seventy years before that, the compound annual rate of growth was 3.182%.

Trump's so-called pro-growth tax reform fell short by almost 23%. 

The problem remains the lingering after effects of the Great Recession, the Great Financial Crisis, the Housing Bubble, whatever you want to call it. The Trump tax reform of 2017 didn't really do anything to address it meaningfully, just as Obama didn't, and also Biden in his turn.

From 2Q2008 to 2Q2025, the compound annual rate of real GDP growth has been just 1.99% vs. 3.421% for the sixty-one years prior to that, starting in 2Q1947.

America remains 42% behind its old self.

That's why everyone is unhappy, but especially the young. They desperately feel the futility of the situation, encumbered as so many of them are with student loan debt for the degrees which are not translating into the key to the future. 

That's the sad reality of where we are, and where we are likely to stay for the foreseeable future.

But as always, the first step is admitting you have a problem instead of trying to put lipstick on that pig.

 

 

 

The trend for earthquakes 7.0+ in the post-war is definitely up

 

I stayed up late in the eastern time zone to watch a tsunami in Hawaii, and all I got was a lousy flooded parking lot

 

... The 9:25 p.m. update listed a 5.7 feet wave in Kahului, 4.9 feet in Hilo, 3.9 feet in Hanalei, 2.3 feet in Makapuu, 1.2 feet in Waianae and 1.1 feet in Honolulu. Other Hawaii areas listed were about 1 foot or less.

Television footage showed some flooding in parking lots in Hilo Bay and Hanalei, but no significant damage has been reported. ...

More. 

GOP U.S. Senate: Feckless lickspittles without two brain cells to rub together propose rebates of surpluses WE DO NOT HAVE

 

The goods trade deficit in May was $96 billion, in June $85 billion.

The only thing that's changed is consumers are now being taxed on those trade deficits. The numbskulls of the GOP U. S. Senate are proposing rebates of these taxes to the people paying them.

It's all completely ludicrous.

It would have been easier simply not to have imposed the taxes in the first place.

If there's a way to lower the standard of living of American consumers, Mad King Ludwig is sure to find it.  

 

Senate introduces bill for tariff rebate checks after Trump suggestion 

 

... The Treasury Department reported an unexpected surplus for June, with a boost from tariff revenue. Customs duties totaled roughly $27 billion for the month, compared to $23 billion in May. The duties reflect a 301% gain from June 2024. ... 

 

 

 

Drudge was ungreatful last night, but by morning he is ungrateful lol

 

Two Weeks Trump be back dawg

 

Trump gives Russia less than two weeks to reach peace deal with Ukraine

President Donald Trump on Monday reduced to less than two weeks his deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to either reach a peace deal with Ukraine or face massive “secondary tariffs” on Moscow’s trade partners.

Trump previously gave Putin a 50-day deadline, which was set to expire in early September.

But he said Monday that the U.S. does not see “any progress being made.” ...

LOL the Wall Street Journal found experts to say dynamic grocery pricing will never go up during the day between the aisle and the register

I remember the days when every grocery item came with a price tag. 

When those went away there was an outcry, saying shelf pricing would be manipulated to get you to buy the item at a lower displayed price but charge you more for it at the register because the price displayed was wrong.

You used to get the item for free if that happened.

Now it happens all the time, but all you get is a refund for the difference, IF YOU STAND IN LINE AT CUSTOMER SERVICE TO GET IT.

Every transaction is going to become a negotiation like we're a goddamn third world country. 

 

 Welcome to the Grocery Store Where Prices Change 100 Times a Day: Electronic shelf labels are spreading at grocery chains in Europe and the U.S., enabling instant price drops—and raising fears of surge pricing

... Prices can change up to 100 times a day at Reitan’s REMA 1000-branded grocery stores across Norway—and more often during holidays. The idea is to match or beat the competition with the touch of a button, says REMA 1000’s head of pricing, Partap Sandhu. “We lower the prices maybe 10 cents and then our competitors do the same, and it kind of gets to [be] a race to the bottom.”

 

It is a matter of time before Americans also see dynamic pricing on groceries, industry experts say. “All one has to do is visit the Netherlands or Norway,” says Ioannis Stamatopoulos, an associate professor who studies retail technology at the University of Texas at Austin’s business school. “That’s a window to the future.”

 

The prospect has raised alarms among U.S. lawmakers and consumers who fear electronic shelf labels in grocery stores will open the way for prices to go up as well as down—and even unleash surge pricing in the aisles. ...

 

As digital labels spread to U.S. stores, American consumers will likely see price changes as they shop in the future, says David Bellinger, a senior analyst at Mizuho Financial Group who covers retailers. He expects the changes will be infrequent or outside of store hours to avoid confusing or upsetting shoppers, and says they should primarily only go down: “Up would probably cause a lot of problems.” ...

I wonder how much Heritage Foundation paid National Review to publish this populist-conservative fusionist screed in the pages of the magazine infamous for purging dissenters

 ... As Heritage Board Chairman Barb Gaby and President Kevin Roberts wrote in their note to staff, alumni, and the many friends gained over the past 52 years:

Ed believed in addition, not subtraction. Unity, not uniformity. One of his favorite mantras was ‘You win through multiplication and addition, not through division and subtraction.’ His legacy is not just the institution he built, but the movement he helped grow — a movement rooted in faith, family, freedom, and the Founding.

Feulner’s words contain practical wisdom. In this era of political polarization and cultural fragmentation, they continue to serve us as a powerful tactical roadmap. In the spirit of self-governance, they call for a movement that grows by building coalitions, not by purging dissent; that persuades rather than polarizes; and that unites Americans around shared values rather than dividing them by ideology. ...

More.