Dollar Stores Are Flashing a Warning Sign About Lower-Income Consumers. WSJ, Jinjoo Lee. Belt tightening from Customers at Dollar stores. Inflation has eased, wage growth has been decent and Americans on average still have more in savings than they used to pre-pandemic. Some might even say the economy has reached a much-vaunted “soft landing.” Low-income consumers, […]

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Cap20 gave this explanation April 2024. Angry Bear posted it July 2024. Here we are in December 10, 2024. Years later and the bill has yet to pay for itself. The bill will be repealed unless Congress acts as It was passed under the Reconciliation rule. Has Congress lost integrity from its failure? Republicans do […]

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Brief Review of the Economy: Press Release: US Leading Indicators. LEI for the US Increased in November CEI also Improving. LEI Three positive occurrences, today December 20, 2024.  Future economic activity increased 0.3 in November for the first monthly gain since 2022, on strength in the stock market, decreasing unemployment claims, and improvement in building permits. Conference […]

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If current trends and policy continue, the Social Security Trust fund will be exhausted in the early 2030s and payments will drop by about 22%. If Trump has his way and income taxes are lifted on SS payments, the Trust Fund will be exhausted a year or two earlier and payments are projected to drop […]

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Many people including Richard S. Foster of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. and Ezra Klein predicted that the Affordable Care Act’s efforts to reduce Medicare outlays by squeezing providers would not work, because providers could opt out. I said they were wrong (fourth link here). Doctors with office practices can and do opt […]

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I was dismayed when I read that Paul Krugman was retiring as a New York TImes Op-ed writer. Silly me. Former columnist Krugman is writing more than columnist Krugman – I get 7 a week not just 3 here, and while the link is to a substack, everything there seems to be free. Another pleasant […]

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An Unparalleled Record of Support for Federal Student Loan Borrowers  Biden-Harris Administration Approves Additional $4.28 Billion in Student Debt Relief for Nearly 55,000 Public Service Workers, U.S. Department of Education Federal Student Loan Portfolio-by-Age.xls Since day one, the Biden-Harris Administration has been committed to helping borrowers who have struggled with the burden of student loan […]

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 – by New Deal democrat Adjusted for inflation, both personal income and spending came in positive once again in November. But under the hood, the report looked a little tepid, and while it certainly wasn’t recessionary, the data was consistent with what I would expect later in the cycle of an expansion. For the record, real […]

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I have a reflexive skepticism about fads. While AI isn’t exactly a fad, the relentless promotion by the media of an AI future certainly looks faddish to me. That said, there’s no question that AI is making inroads into data analysis. Watson can already read radiological images more accurately than trained radiologists. AI is transforming […]

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Technically a good report. Not what they were expecting. The economy is still strong at the end of 2024. The third estimate of the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the third quarter of 2024 shows the economy grew at a 3.1% annual rate, which is higher than the 2.8% forecasted.  Factors contributing to the […]

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I would say Powell is taking a cautious approach. This comes with Trump taking office and Elon tinkering by edicts. The Federal Reserve carried out its third consecutive interest rate cut of the year Wednesday, as its monetary policy easing campaign shows signs of heading for a slowdown. Following its two-day meeting, the Federal Open […]

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Two different and closely matching explanation of healthcare spending in 2023. One in writing and the other pictorial. The latter is easily explained by itself and also with the written explanation. Increases in cost for Medicare are mostly due the commercial Medicare Advantage. The outcomes of which are no better and can be worst. U.S. […]

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