Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Core producer prices, not seasonally adjusted, were up 2.827% year over year in today's report for August 2025

 The climb-down from last month's report for July 2025 at 3.655% year over year was YUGE.

The numbers have been quite volatile for the last four months. 

In today's release, the yoy numbers for Nov 2024 through Mar 2025 remain unchanged from last month's report. The five month average of these for the yoy increase in core wholesale prices has been 3.711%.

Last month the average for April through July came in lower, at 3.144% year over year, but that has now been revised even lower in this month's report, by 2%, to 3.081% yoy.

Combined with the fresh August reading at 2.827% yoy, clearly the trend for the rate increases has been lower overall.

But these levels are far higher than the average 1.629% which prevailed 2012-2020 inclusive. Our new lower August reading is a rate still nearly 74% higher than that.

The wholesale price environment remains highly inflationary compared with the pre-pandemic era.

 


 

 

This isn't news this morning at Real Clear Politics

 There wasn't one single story about it.

 


Thanks to Trump/Vance appeasement of Putin, NATO ally Poland is starting to look just like Ukraine

 

Poland says it shot down Russian drones that violated its airspace during attack on Ukraine

The Polish military accused Moscow of an "act of aggression" early Wednesday. The incident marked a first for a NATO member state since the Kremlin invaded its neighbor.
 
Poland said a number of Russian drones entered its airspace during an attack on Ukraine early Wednesday and were shot down with the help of NATO allies, a first since Moscow's full-scale invasion of its neighbor. ...  Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said his country was dealing with "a large-scale provocation,” and that his military recorded 19 drone incursions overnight, four of which he said were shot down. ... The E.U. called it the “most serious European airspace violation by Russia since the war began.” ...


Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Yep, gold made another new record high: $3,673.95

 


The Wall Street Journal: Just 35% of high school seniors in 2024 were proficient in reading, and only 22% in math


 ... Twelfth-graders’ average math score was the worst since the current test began in 2005, and reading was below any point since that assessment started in 1992. The share of 12th-graders who were proficient slid by 2 percentage points between 2019 and 2024—to 35% in reading and 22% in math. ...

More.

And they can vote. 



Pattern development: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent first mixed it up with Elon Musk over an IRS appointment and now with Bill Pulte for bad-mouthing him to Trump


 



Sunday, September 7, 2025

Let's cut to the chase: They need the National Guard to protect ICE from the people

If Trump were really serious about deportations, he'd be going after the employers, which would be far easier than going after eleventy million illegals or whatever it is.

That's how you know this is all fake, all performative. 

It is deportation theatre, from beginning to end.

The goal is 3,000 deportations a day, which over four years is only 4.3 million.

It is unserious policy, for an unserious country, but it is going to cost serious money. 

 

 


Here's another fascist ass-kisser: GOP 2026 US Senate candidate Mike Rogers wants Trump to send the military to Detroit

 


The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants

 


They think they've been appointed judge, jury, and executioner, but are in violation of the Sixth Amendment

 


Saturday, September 6, 2025

Friday's bad job report spooked Treasury buyers big time, pushing yields down 4.5% in the aggregate from the August average in a flight to safety

Average US Treasury yields by duration Fri Sep 5, 2025:

Bills 3.96

Notes 3.69

Bonds 4.75

Aggregate 3.98 (down 4.5% from Aug average).

The aggregate was already down 6.5% from January in August. The only yields still holding up had been in bonds, which gave up 11 basis points on Friday, yielding 4.75 vs. the August average of 4.86, down about 2.2%. 

The rosy scenario, which isn't rosy, is for stagflation. The worse scenario is for recession, possibly signaled by the revision to June payrolls, now down 13k.

You know, like in January 2001, but past performance is no guarantee of future results.

The point is, people are spooked. 

 

 



Gold hit a record high $3,599.89 on Friday Sep 5 2025, silver holds just under $41

 


Is Bill Pulte the new Brownie or what?

Ah yes, the current incompetence is but a dim reflection of the past incompetence, but a reflection nonetheless.

 


Mark Pulte, the father of Lisa Cook accuser Bill Pulte, loses homestead exemption on Michigan property after Reuters investigation finds he committed same infraction of which his son accused the Fed governor lol


Bill is obviously not the sharpest knife in the drawer. 

 Bill Pulte accused Fed Governor Lisa Cook of fraud. His relatives filed housing claims similar to hers: Reuters

... Mark and Julie Pulte, the father and stepmother of Bill Pulte, President Donald Trump’s appointee as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, since 2020 have claimed so-called “homestead exemptions” for residences in wealthy neighborhoods in both Michigan and Florida, according to the records. The exemption is meant to give a discount to homeowners on taxes for properties they use as their primary residence. 

Local tax officials in both states told Reuters that claiming more than one home as a primary residence isn’t generally allowed in their jurisdictions and could be punishable by fines or back taxes. After Reuters contacted tax officials in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, to inquire about the dual claims, Darrin Kraatz, director of assessing, on Thursday said the township “as of today” would revoke the exemption on the Pultes’ residence there. ... 

It isn’t clear how much the Pultes may have saved each year because of the Michigan claim, but on Friday property records already indicated the exemption there is now zero.

 

Bye dad!