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?

Hers looks pretty unregulated to me

 

Nine in ten Iranians must welcome it

 Trump threatens to ‘decimate’ Iran if it tries to kill him, as Treasury sanctions alleged financier

He'll be taking credit for it sooner or later

 Bipartisan housing bill automatically becomes law after Trump refuses to sign it

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. ... 

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.

   

Commies EVERYWHERE! 

... 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. ...

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. 

The Nazi Tattoo Should Have Been Enough

Batya Ungar-Sargon, Substack

 

 

 

 

Three weeks ago Trump said Iran has new, rational leadership, but now they're just as cuckoo as before, lyin' scum, et cetera lol

 

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

 

 

Trump: I don’t want to deal with them anymore … as far as I’m concerned, it’s over

Trump says Iran ceasefire is ‘over’ after latest round of strikes

Oil surges almost 6% as Trump dashes hopes of end to Iran war  

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.

 

 

The magats are very concerned that some people aren't patriotic enough

 

The Smithsonian's Patriotism Problem

Daniel McCarthy, Chronicles

 

Sen. Kelly Wore a Mexico Jersey To Watch World Cup?

Amy Furr, Breitbart