Tag: unemployment

Sundaz Theme Music

Happy solstice morning greetings from Ashlandia. It’s 41 F with moderately heavy rain today. The weather systems tell me that’s how it’ll be all day, with the high reaching for 47 F. A ‘white Christmas’ isn’t being dealt to us this year.

Yes, it’s Sunda, and it also happens to be winter solstice north of the equator, December 21, 2025. Down south of zero, they’re celebrating the summer’s arrival.

We’re doing our ‘traditional solstice’ dinner but it’s being winged. Our traditional celebration evolved from previous celebrations we’d cludged together from pagan practices regarding solstice. Building on those, we started having a simple dinner of soup, salad, and bread as part of solstice. It expanded for a while, with others invited in to celebrate with us. COVID broke the tradition. We observed alone for a bit but shifted from it. Partially contributing to that was a sense of weariness my wife and I both felt; just weren’t up to celebrating, given the world’s state and trajectory.

I proposed doing soup and bread for solstice dinner again. But instead of making it all ourselves, we’d visit the Food Co-op and Market of Choice and buy some fresh soup from them.

I read about “King Mida in Reverse” in blog comments the other day. I haven’t heard nor thought of the song in years. Think I heard it on Sirus XM while driving on a long trip back before BCP – Before COVID Pandemic.

The commenter was saying this song, by the Hollies, perfectly describes the Trump effect. He’s a destructive force masked as something else. Trump will advance, mostly through luck, lying, evading responsibility, and cheating, but whatever he touches is the worse for it. Look how he destroyed so many businesses and yet enriched himself. Now he’s doing it on a gigantic scale, destroying the moral fabric, government structure, and checks and balances of the United States. Meanwhile, he’s turning us, We the People, against each other based on race and politics, cratering the economy, and making us sicker via terrible health care decisions. Yes, PINO Trump is most definitely King Midas in reverse. That’s why he throws gold on everything in a desperate effort to change the optics on what he’s doing. But the results of dropping approval ratings, rising disapproval rating in all areas, increasing unemployment, decreasing employment, and diminishing affordability speaks for itself. Dizzy Donny is failing, flailing, and fading.

Unfortunately for the U.S.A., Trump has turned over governing to Russell Vought for domestic affairs, Stephen Miller for domestic security, and Pete Hegseth and Marcos Rubio for diplomacy and foreign policy. Except for Rubio, these are individuals We the People don’t trust with the keys to a car, let alone running the nation. But that’s where we are, thanks to PINO Trump.

Lyrics

~snip~

I’m not the guy to run with
’cause I’ll throw you off the line
I’ll break you and destroy you
Given time

He’s King Midas with a curse
He’s King Midas in reverse
He’s King Midas with a curse
He’s King Midas in reverse

It’s plain to see it’s hopeless
Going on the way we are
So even though I’d lose you
You’d be better off by far

He’s not the man to hold your trust
Everything he touches turns to dust
In his hands
Nothing he can do is right
He’d even like to sleep at night
But he can’t

All he touches turns to dust

All he touches turns to dust

All he touches turns to dust

All he touches turns to dust

~snip~

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Time to chug some coffee and crank the energy motor up. Hope peace and grace sneaks out of hiding to give you a hug. Here we go. Happy solstice. Cheers

0

Mundaz Wandering Political Thoughts

I’ve read a number of recent pieces about the economy. They focus mostly on the confusion now seen in the U.S. economy. Why tariffs didn’t increase prices as much as expected. Why customers are so negative about the economy when the numbers aren’t bad. Why consumer spending remains up while consumer confidence is down.

Trump’s antics play much into their impressions. He’s broken trade agreements. Then, by leveling tariffs on everything in the name of national security, he’s shifted expectations. Prices are expected to increase due to tariffs. So are shortages due to tariffs and trade wars. These factors advance negative perceptions of what’s to come. Paul Krugman refers to this as vibecessions. These are vibes that a recession is coming, that the economy is not really doing well.

Well, for one, there’s been some surprise in the tariffs. The effective rate has turned out to be much lower than the declared rates. Part of this is because most economists expect Trump’s tariffs to be declared illegal and withdrawn. They suspect companies are eating much of the tariff costs for the short term so they won’t lose customers. This makes sense, if they expect the tariffs to be short-lived. It also makes sense if you compare the cost of finding and luring new customers to your business compared to the cost of keeping them. Getting new customers is much harder and more expensive. Loyalty, once broached, is very expensive. Then, when the tariffs are withdrawn, companies can, as necessary raise prices under other pretenses.

As for employment and unemployment, economists suggest this is because of uncertainty with the economy. Part of this is due not just to reporting confusion (more on that below), but because of the economic activity being generated by cryptocurrencies and AI developments. Both are areas where vast investments are being made. Both are relatively new. Their actual impact on the economy is uncertain.

This is especially true with AI. Artificial Intelligence. It’s here, but meaningful impact from using artificial intelligence in business to increase productivity and profits is slow to emerge. Meanwhile, huge centers are being built to support AI. These are expensive centers. Their need for electricity will drive up energy costs if they’re not countered by the construction of new energy sources. The Trump Regime’s deliberate decisions to cut funds to build solar and wind farms to generate more electricity puts the nation way behind planning and building new power sources.

Additionally, with so many huge AI centers being built, there will be some which don’t successfully compete and then fail. Think back if you can to when personal computers came onto the scene. So many businesses sprang up to build computers to fill this new need. Likewise, look at the airline industry when commercial airline travel was growing, and how many airlines sprang up and then either got bought up or shut down and faded away. Same with automobile manufacturing. Video renting. Streaming services. Malls. Craft beers and micro breweries. Each advance is littered with the remains of failures.

Plus, there is some fallout that’s going to grow because of provisions in the Big Beautiful Bill. What it will do to healthcare costs aren’t clear. Premiums for many seem to be climbing. How this load on their spending patterns hasn’t been clearly demonstrated. Likewise, cuts to SNAP, school systems, college enrollment, are still to be expected. As Federal funds don’t make it to the state level, state funding doesn’t reach local levels, affecting the economy at multiple levels. Then, too, there is the declining tourism, especially from foreign locations. It’s affecting state economies who depend on tourism, but how deeply will they be affected is the looming question.

Additionally, I think many consumers might be like my wife and me. In my house, we made many purchases with the expectations that the economic crap is going to encounter the economic fan, so buy now, while prices aren’t too bad, while the stuff is available, while we can. Basically, it’s spend more now because we can’t buy later. We deliberately stockpiled things we regularly use, like coffee and canned and processed foods from other countries. We do replenish as we can now, using the same rational.

Beyond those things, we know that Trump is a liar. We’ve also noticed that those surrogates in Trump’s Regime who speak out in public are liars. Not just liars but do everything possible to prop Trump and all things Trump up and light it up in the best possible light. As Trump via DOGE slashed through the government, he broke many things. Among them is the reporting mechanism for several economic indicators. He flat removed people who gave truthful numbers, such as the BLS. That burned him, so he burned them. That’s just the things that came out in public. What’s going on behind in the dark can only be guessed out.

That leaves us confused. Can we trust Trump and the numbers his administration releases? Fuck no. Only fools and sycophants believe those numbers. With that uncertainty, businesses struggle to make any long-term plans, because reality might catch up any day now.

Trump thinks he can keep up his numbers game and lies. We know that’s not true; we see prices rising, causing the affordability issues we’re now facing.

We also have Trump’s personal history. That history shows that Trump’s lies are always exposed. He lied about his accomplishments, his wealth, his businesses, and his prospects. Each time, those were exposed. He was taken to court. Convicted. Filed for bankruptcies to escape his mistakes. Cheated on taxes. Stole money from charities he or his family set up. Used word games and sleight of hand and secrecy to build himself up. But it all catches up to him. Right now, we’re waiting to see what the Epstein files show who he and what he’s done. Trump has been fighting like hell to keep that from happening.

So that’s the thing, for me. Beyond the numbers, there is a simple truth: Trump is a failure who lives behind a curtain of deception. But that curtain keeps getting torn open. When it does this time, it’s going to be a freaking mess.

2

Wenzdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

I’ve been thinking about that $2000 that Trump is waving in front of people.

What an utterly disconnected offering. What a cheap fucking bribe. Sure, the poorest and those close to being poor will jump on two grand. It’d give them temporary breathing room, maybe help fix a car or pay for part of something needed. For most, though, two thou in today’s economy is like a cold slice of half-eaten pizza found for breakfast.

Fierce Healthcare notes that red staters have been flocking to ACA for the last several years.

ACA exchange enrollment has skyrocketed since 2020, with most of the growth in red states: KFF

Enrollment on the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) exchanges has more than doubled over the past several years, with much of that growth coming from red states, according to a new report.

Analysts at KFF found that enrollment in marketplace plans reached 24.3 million for 2025, up from 11.4 million in 2020. That’s growth of 113% for those five years, the researchers said.

Almost all states have seen some level of increase since 2020, per the report. However, there are six states where enrollment more than tripled, and all were won by President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. The highest increases were in Texas and Mississippi, where enrollment grew by 255% and 242%, respectively.

 In Louisiana and West Virginia, enrollment increased by 234%, while Georgia saw an increase of 227%. Enrollment rose in Tennessee by 221%.

Yowza! Sounds like Trump is screwing over his base without the breaks the Big Beautiful Bill of 2025 ended. When cruelty is the point, it doesn’t matter who the victim is. More pointedly, when healthcare premiums are jumping by huge chunks, two thousand doesn’t gain much, especially now, when affordability is rising as a problem for ‘Muricans. Industries, reporters, businesses, and analysts are citing increases in food prices, pet food, construction and home repair, gas for heating homes and gas for driving cars, electricity, healthcare, and consumer goods. Against that flood, Trump desperately throws up two thousand dollars and tries those tired ol’ ploys of crying fake news, hoax, while repeatedly and shrilly lying, “No, no, it’s all going great!” But even hard-headed MAGAts are starting to notice the dick-tator’s new clothes.

Of course, Trump is booming with promises.

He promises — again — he’s coming out with a new healthcare plan. Promises and lies is what he doth best. ‘Member any of these?

Trump’s shutdown win just landed Republicans with a huge political headache

Trump and Republicans once again own the issue of health care, with millions of citizens — not just those on ACA plans — afflicted by rising premiums and high deductibles against the backdrop of a wider cost-of-living crisis. And just as in his first term, Trump lacks a comprehensive, detailed plan to bring relief to citizens who lack health care, who can’t afford the plans they have or who know that the loss of a job could leave them without any coverage at all.

~snip~

During the 2016 campaign, Trump pledged to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something “terrific.” At rallies, he promised Americans new health care that would cost less but be far better. If that sounds impossible, it’s probably because it is.

Early in his first term, Trump promised that change was on the way. “Despite what you hear in the press, healthcare is coming along great. We are talking to many groups and it will end in a beautiful picture!” he wrote on the website formerly known as Twitter in March 2017. The GOP failure to repeal Obamacare, partly because it couldn’t come up with an alternative, didn’t stop Trump’s sunny predictions. “The Republican Party will be soon be known as theparty of health care,” the president declared in March 2019.

Second term, same as the first. In his debate with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in 2024, Trump was mocked for saying he had “concepts of a plan” to make health care “better and less expensive.” More than a year later — and despite some significant efforts by Trump to bring down the cost of some prescription drugs — Americans are still waiting for his wider solutions.

~snip~

But with unemployment likely rising, some people will be very desperate for any additional income.

US likely bled jobs in October

The Bureau of Labor Statistics did not release an October jobs report thanks to the GOP’s government shutdown. But the United States likely lost a whopping 50,000 jobs last month, according to a report released Tuesday by Goldman Sachs. This is a flashing warning that the nation may be entering recession territory.

Goldman Sachs’ report was backed up by data from the payroll company ADP, which on Tuesday said that the private sector lost an average of 11,250 jobs per week in the four weeks ending Oct. 25. ADP said the numbers signal that “the labor market struggled to produce jobs consistently during the second half” of October.

It’s all part of the MAGA magic, an illusion as deep and real as the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz.

Which means, of course, brace yerself. Trump and his allies need more distractions. Bigger distractions. They’ll get angrier. Meaner. Crueler. Declare more enemies and attack more. Lie more, and do it more loudly. Because, you know.

Just in time for the holidays. You’re a cruel one, Mr. Trump.

3

Twosdaz Theme Music

If that’s the garbage truck, it must be Twozda. Indeed, it’s the garbage truck and Twozda, October 7, 2025. Beautiful 67 F with blue skies forever and sunshine flooding over the trees and mountains. 81 F is in range as today’s top end.

Trump news has me itchy with irritation. With the government shutdown underway, stats and data useful to decision making and trend spotting is MIA. Air traffic controllers and the military are being asked to work without pay. ATC is a stressful job. The military can be as stressful. Working without pay adds to that stress. Financial institutions are helping both segments cope with the loss of income but how sustainable is that? Beyond those areas, home foreclosures under Trump are on the rise. Mortgage rates are high. Insurance costs are soaring and will go yet higher as the costs of replacement materials increase. Local taxes and service fees are increasing to replace revenue losses and the loss of Federal assistance under the Trump Regime. Food prices keep going up. Going into the holiday season in the United States, the vaunted last three months of the year, home to Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Kwanza, and Hannukah, prices of gifts and food are expected to take deep bites out of budgets. Couple that with other factors, and an ugly quagmire is being put into place.

The Trump Regime doesn’t help any of it. As tax revenues fall and farmer suffer from losses because of tariffs, the Trump Regime wants to bail out the farmers hurting from Trump’s destructive tariffs and trade wars. It’s a classic downward spiral. Contributing further, Trump is cutting off renewable energy projects. That takes a chunk out of the economy, as those projects usually contributed to state and city local economic booms. Unemployment will rise. Meanwhile, his moves to instill manufacturing will take time. And if people are unemployed and counting pennies to get buy, who is going to buy the goods that the factories make? He’s killing the market.

Finally, uselessly deploying troops to cities are estimated to cost about twenty million dollars a day per place. Trump thinks that tariffs will replace tax revenues but if people are buying less and less because the cost of everything is rising, WTH does he think is going to buy? Coupled with all of this, the government shutdown and shaky economic and weakening economic forecast will drive higher costs to pay off the Federal deficit, and it has already caused companies to put spending and hiring plans on hold.

It is a fucking mess, and will just get worse. Healthcare premiums are set to soar under the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’. Read that in the mocking tone it deserves. With healthcare premiums increasing, people will cut insurance. More people will get sick but get help less often, usually until it’s dire. This leads to increasing healthcare costs and lower productivity. Lower productivity generates higher costs. All this is historically documented. The Trump Regime refuses to acknowledge those history lessons.

Stack on: tourism is down and will keep going down as Trump’s military presence grows in cities and his ICE agents aggressively attack people. Those are bad optics for tourism, and the soft data tells us that foreign visitors are shunning the United States as a tourist, education, and business destination. Additionally, the Trump assault on universities and colleges are reducing enrollment. That means those institutions will need to cut overhead and personnel. And, again, as Trump cuts Federal funding for government-backed research, activities in those projects will significantly drop or go completely idle. That’s more lost jobs. More lost local revenue. More lost Federal revenue.

It’ll all come crashing down under its own weight. Our questions are, how bad will it get? How long will it take before all these pressures come together to fuse the political will to work against Trump. So far, the GOP is completely MIA in this. This is their mess, but it will crush all except the wealthiest. The wealthiest, like Trump.

Reminder: this is the Epstein shutdown. The fear releasing the files. Releasing the files might generate the political will to move on from Trump. And the GOP is happier with him and they in charge, wrecking the world, than revealing who he is. As if we don’t already know. I guess they fear the validation of who he is, who they worship, and support.

All this stirred The Neurons to play “On the Dark Side” in the morning mental music stream. This song was from a movie called Eddie and the Cruisers, about the life and times of a fake rock band with heavy focus on the tortured soul lead singer, Eddie. The real music is performed by John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band.

Enough venting, enough from the dark side. Hope grace and peace resurfaces for us all and doesn’t hold out too much longer. Time for coffee. Time to write. Here we go, out into the day. Cheers

3

Wenzdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Breathe deep, I remind myself. So much shitty news roils my complacent sailing. I seethe against Trump and the GOP. My specific seething target is that waste of space, Mike Johnson (R) – Hell. When questioned and pressed for an opinion about Trump suggesting that United States cities should be used as a training ground for the military, Johson squirms like a worm putting put on a hook. The Daily Beast reports via MSN.

Mike Johnson Cornered Over Trump’s Dark Military Threat: ‘Answer the Question!’

“I don’t serve in the Pentagon. I run the House of Representatives, and what we need to be talking about today is real harm that the American people are going to feel because of what Chuck Schumer is doing,” Johnson replied, referencing the government shutdown that Republicans are trying to pin on Democrats.

Yes, squirm, worm, squirm!

Shutdown Blues are sweeping the country. Trump seems pretty unconcerned from what we’ve seen and heard of him. Hell, he’s still getting rich, stealing from the government and scamming folks from the Offal Office. More than that, in his altered reality, he’s probably being cheered and feted with confefve from adoring crowds. Yet, coupled with the government shutdown and the impact that’ll splash over into the economy and the United States’ credit and bond ratings, people should be bracing themselves for rising prices, falling services, failing and businesses, and well, greater yet enshittification. This is the kind of event that’ll sweep over all facets of society. Trump seems oblivious, but that just released ADP jobs report is ugly. UPI feeds us the deets.

ADP report shows 32,000 loss in jobs in September

Oct. 1 (UPI) — Private companies’ payrolls dropped by a seasonally adjusted 32,000 jobs in September, according to an ADP report released Wednesday.

The figure represented the largest decline since March 2023. ADP also revised its August numbers — from an increase of 54,000 jobs to a drop of 3,000.

Well, tourism is down. Prices are rising as tariffs kick in and stock built up before Trump’s tariffs were announced dwindle. Beyond that, Trump’s erratic rollout, as consistent as a tide on a stormy beach, confuses business leaders and encourages distrust. Disrupted supply chains and doubtful, worried consumers encourages suspicions about what will happen next. Trust, once broken, isn’t easily regained.

UPI‘s story goes on to note,

The ADP report showed a 28,000 overall drop in service-related jobs, including leisure/hospitality (19,000), professional/business services (13,000), financial activities (9,000), trade/transportation/utilities (7,000) and other services (16,000). There was a rise in education and health services jobs — by 33,000 — and in information jobs — by 3,000.

Meanwhile, MarketWatch reports on deeper, ongoing problems.

The vital signs for the U.S. jobs market were already flickering before the employment report was delayed. Just how bad is it?

The health of the labor market is the single biggest worry of the Fed — even more than a recent rise in inflation. The central bank trimmed a key U.S. interest rate in September in what appears to be the beginning of a rate-cutting cycle to shore up the economy.

Most top Fed officials continue to call the labor market stable. Yet they are increasingly alert to the possibility of “more meaningful and unwelcome increase in the unemployment rate” that could damage the economy, as Boston Fed President Susan M. Collins said Tuesday.

But is the labor market really stable? On the surface, it appears so.

The economy is still adding jobs, if at a glacial pace, and the unemployment rate is quite low historically at 4.3%.

The number of people applying for unemployment benefits each week is also surprisingly low, a sign that businesses are mostly avoiding layoffs. Instead, they simply aren’t filling open positions after former employees leave — what economists call “attrition.”

Dig a little deeper, though, and the vital signs for the labor market don’t look nearly so good.

Start with a decline in hiring — the number of new hires per 100 workers. The hiring rate among private-sector businesses fell again in August to 3.5%, matching a five-year low.

The slowdown in hiring is glaring in the most recent U.S. employment reports. The economy added an average of just 25,000 new jobs a month from May through August, marking the weakest four-month stretch since 2010, ignoring the COVID-19-era period.

Not only that, but employment actually fell in June for the first time since 2020.

“Low hiring remains the main driver of weaker labor market,” economists at Citi Research said.

Trump has a proven history of trying to hide from facts and pretend that all is not just great, but the greatest ever. It’s not a deep surprise that the BLS Jobs Report will be delayed. Many, including moi, think Trump’s minions will outright game the numbers to tell a wholly different story. While that might appease his MAGA base and buy time with lockstep Republicans, business people, critical thinkers, and, well, citizens residing in the real world will react with greater distrust and suspicion.

Seasonally, we should be seeing a jump in sales and employment in the United States. It’s the economic fourth quarter. Black Friday is coming, along with the big holiday season that so many love and loathe. The portents are mixed about what will happen. As Paul Krugman likes to remind us, hard data is catching up with soft data.

Time will tell for us but despite his appearances, Trump knows the clock is running. Tick, tock, TACO, tick, tock.


4

Satyrdaz Theme Music

Cool rain commences. It’s Satyrda, August 18, 2025. 72 F, we’re two degrees short of our expected high.

Papi loves this weather. The back door is open and the ginger floof makes it his territory. Lounging there, he can monitor us and the outside, grooming after breakfast.

We’re on final vacay prep. I take my ‘puter, so I’ll post but less often and more inconsistently. We’re there mainly for the ocean’s influence. That’d be the Pacific. Our rental place is a few hundred walkable yards from where the ocean beats the rocks and sprays mist the air. The floofsitter will be staying in our house, as her place has some repairs going on. She and Papi get along quite well. I trust the situation in her hands.

I see that Trump hit the trifecta with wholesale vegetable prices in July. Stories I’ve read say the veggie prices jumped over 39 percent.

What led to this? Well, a trio of issues, mainly. One, unpredictable weather, you know, like the increasingly erratic weather caused by climate change, which Trump claims is fake news because he and his supporters are either too dense to understand it, or they view it as a siphon on profits, and without money, life has little meaning for ’em, outside of hatred.

The second cause for the wholesale price jump was cited as labor shortages. That was predicted loudly and continually by anyone with a brain larger than a pea who has paid attention what goes on in the U.S. These labor shortages are directly attributed to Trump’s ICE disappearance policies and heavy-handed gestapo strategy.

The final nail in the almost 40 percent price increase was Trump’s tariffs. Again, very predictable except to the mango clown waddling around the Offal Office and his simpering minions.

Now, on the right, they like to claim that the labor shortage isn’t that bad. That ‘Murican will take over those migrant jobs. They love fables like that. They also bulk up their reasoning with claims that machinery now does most of the vegetable harvesting. While true that machines are used in many circumstances, hand-picking is needed for anything that’s going farm to table. Machines are used for harvesting veggies and fruits destined for canning and animal feed.

Read the whole article about the wholesale price jump at Wholesale Vegetable Prices Are Skyrocketing. What Does That Mean for Shoppers?

This news came from the BLS. Trump just fired that agency’s leader after the downward revision of labor for the previous two months, information which showed that the economy is going down the toilet. Trump hates info like that, so someone over at BLS is gonna get their head handed to them.

The bad economic news also comes on the heels of the Putin and Trump talks about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump’s sucking up and lack of results make him look weak, and Putin ably handled him. Net result: Trump won nothing but praise from Putin for being a victim. Trump loves believing he’s a victim, one of the most unfairly treated people in the world, so he ate that shit up with a large spoon.

Shame, though. All this bad press has diminished the focus on the Epstein Files, and how deep Trump was in with Epstein. His lack of efforts to release the files and irritation whenever Epstein gets mentioned, coupled with his delicate handling of the felon named Maxwell, leads many to think that Trump is bigly mentioned in that file, and not in good ways.

Donald Trump with his buddy, the late convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.

Today’s music is brought to you by my sister. She mentioned yellow on a social media platform, sharing a post asking, “Who is your yellow?” A yellow is a person who brings joy into your life without trying. When I read that, The Neurons pumped up “Yellow” by Coldplay in the morning mental music stream. So here we are.

Coffee is making itself at home among my Neurons. Getting ready to pounce on another day. Hope peace and grace carry you on to the best days you can live. Cheers

0

Twosdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

A snowball is slowing rolling down over the economy, picking up speed and getting larger.

This is the oncoming Trump economic disaster. The signs are exponentially expanding.

A third of CEOs plan to axe jobs over the next year—and most now say they’ll pass on new tariff costs to their customers

‘Panic rippling’: Coffee exec warns ‘things are getting very dark’ under Trump

Trump Threatens Powell With ‘Lawsuit’ as His Economy Sinks

Trump Promised to Fix Inflation. He’s Doing This Instead.

US consumer prices increase moderately in July; data quality concerns rising

Trump Promised a Golden Age. Then a Montana Lumber Plant Closed Down.

‘Bad for America’: Trump dressed down by WaPo editors for latest side deal

Trump BLS pick suggests suspending monthly jobs report over data concerns

Things just ain’t going well for Americans, and it will get worse. As they awaken to their issues brought on by the reckless incompetent installed in the Offal Office, they’re beginning to reject TACO’s ‘leadership’. As confidence in Trump and the United States economy falls, he’ll get more reckless. More desperate. As the snowball picks up speed and starts wrecking more of the nation, Trump will go off the rails. ta

And that’s a problem. Trump has insulated himself from facts and reality by building a wall of protective sycophants. Republicans in Congress are willing accomplices to Trump’s disastrous behavior. Right-wingers on the Supreme Court are working hard to give him the green light to do as he will. All of them are doing their damnedest to ignore what history has proven and what the facts are showing.

We’ll see what happens when that snowball crashes full on into the economy. At the current rate, it might well be around Black Friday, that hallowed retail day. Maybe then there will be a reckoning.

Until then, we need to hang on and fight the Trump craziness.

1

Satyrdaz Theme Music

More bunder thusters prowled Ashlandia’s late afternoon and early evening. Less sprinkles than you’d find on a doughnut fell, too. But Satyrda, August 2, 2025, has awakened in our area as sun-filled blue skies. A 67 F temperature now is expected to climb into the top 80s. A check of the fire watch and fire warning systems shows no new lightning-started fires in southern Oregon and northern California, knock wood, once again.

We’re flabbergasted in our household about economics surprised by the ‘weaker-than-expected’ jobs numbers and manufacturing decline. “Gasp,” economists said. “Unemployment has gone up again. Less people are employed. Who would have believed that would happen after Trump terminated all those Federal jobs? Just because tourism is down because less people are traveling to the United States due to ICE shouldn’t affect jobs, should it? And I don’t think the shuttering of automobile factories, even temporarily due to material shortages and tariffs, would affect job numbers. I wonder what’s going on?” Those economics should consider relocating their offices from under those rocks.

This was another household laugher of a headline: RFK Jr. says cancer screenings are too ‘woke’ now. WTF does that word mess even mean? The Trump Regime continues toward new lows in coherency.

A second laugher came in the FAFO variety: Trump voter livid after being profiled by ICE: ‘I’m an American who now has to be afraid’. It was again a brown voter who thought Trump would go after those ‘other’ brown people, the bad ones, and not them.

Finally, more FAFO is being reported in Iowa. ‘Tidal wave on our hands’: Furious voters say Trump’s turning key red state purple. The first paragraph claims, “Angry voters in Iowa could turn the state from solid red to a swing state because they feel betrayed by President Donald Trump on issues from healthcare to agriculture.”

A large part of that is that farmers felt betrayed by Trump urging Coca Cola to make Coke with cane sugar only for sale in the U.S., what is often referred to as ‘Mexican Coke’ because they use cane sugar to make Coke in Mexico. The Iowa farmers grow corn; corn syrup was being used in Coke production. So there goes their market. As usual, Trump shows how naive and short-sighted he is, how disconnected from reality, or he would have known of the connection between corn syrup and American farmers. But he’s too damn painfully lacking of the brain cells needed to comprehend these things. Since he’s installed only ‘yes’ people who kowtow to him, he won’t hear anyone explain the relationship between corn, farmers, Coke, and sugar to him. Or, as likely, he’ll shrug and say with his ’empathy’, “They’ll get over it.”

Jill Dennison started a chain the other day. She played a Foreigner song on her blog. I countered with some other Foreigner song. Ark chimed in with another Foreigner song, “Urgent”. Ark mentioned the sax, and the album, Four or 4. That was a fine damn album and it was added to the rotation for a while at my house after it was released. Now The Neurons have run with that, of course, playing “Urgent” and other Foreigner songs from the album in the morning mental music stream. I’m afraid that means that I must share the song with you to stop The Neurons from playing it in my head. I’m sorry, but those are the rules. I didn’t create them; I just live by them.

May peace and grace find you today. Maybe some fun, too. Here we go. Cheers

0

Thirstda’s Theme Music

Hello. Excuse me. Is this Thirstda, July 3, 2025? It is? Well, I guess this is where I belong, then.

It’s 74 F now. Gonna be 84 F. Dropping down to a chillier temp tomorrow: 80 F. Nice having a not blazing hot summer. So far, knock wood.

The jobs reports of a 147,000 gains surprised everyone, especially after ADP’s report yesterday that the private sector lost 33,000. Experts are now clamoring, gosh, the U.S. economy is more robust than we thought, and the markets hurtled up with glee. Sure, tourism is down and the national parks are a mess, and manufacturing lost 7,000 jobs and teen unmployment and Black unemployment rose and DOGE cut loose a bunch of people, but all is well. Well, we’ll see.

Kudos to Rep. Hakeen Jeffries for putting himself out there and making the effort. He set a new record for speaking on the House floor, 8 hours and 44 minutes, rebuking the GOTP for that ugly bill that they bizarrely call the One Big Beautiful Bill. It passed in the House, so it’s on the way to Trump. We’ll see what happens next. I expect Trump will celebrate with a new product like Trump Beer, a bargain at $60 a six pack. Then maybe he’ll set up a presidential kissing booth. Loyal MAGAs can pay good money to sidle up and kiss Trump staffer ass.

Today’s music is “Children of the Revolution”. I don’t know why The Neurons put the 1972 song into the morning mental music stream. After going in search of a Rex version, I came across a cover by the Violent Femmes and used it, because I used the Rex version back in 2023 and I like the Violent Femmes. So, here we go.

The sun is shining and the coffee is consumed. I’m off to my physical. Have a better one. Cheers

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Thirstda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

After four months, it’s Little PINO TACO’s economy. Reuters.com has a neat recap of the situation as of today.

US labor market showing cracks; corporate profits post largest drop since 2020

  • Summary
  • Weekly jobless claims increase 14,000 to 240,000
  • Continuing claims rise 26,000 to 1.919 million
  • Corporate profits fall $118.1 billion in first quarter
  • Economy contracts at 0.2% rate in Q1 by all measures

WASHINGTON, May 29 (Reuters) – The number of Americans filing new applications for jobless benefits increased more than expected last week and the unemployment rate appeared to have picked up in May, suggesting layoffs were rising as tariffs cloud the economic outlook.

The report from the Labor Department on Thursday showed a surge in applications in Michigan last week, the nation’s motor vehicle assembly hub. The number of people collecting unemployment checks in mid-May was the largest in 3-1/2 years.

The dimming economic outlook was reinforced by other data showing corporate profits declining by the most in more than four years in the first quarter, pulled down by nonfinancial domestic industries.

A U.S. trade court on Wednesday blocked most of President Donald Trump’s tariffs from going into effect in a sweeping ruling that the president overstepped his authority. They were temporarily reinstated by a federal appeals court on Thursday, adding another layer of uncertainty over the economy.

“This is a sign that cracks are starting to form in the economy and that the outlook is deteriorating,” said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS. “There is nothing great about today’s jobless claims data and the jump in layoffs may be a harbinger of worse things to come.”

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 14,000 to a seasonally adjusted 240,000 for the week ended May 24, the Labor Department said. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 230,000 claims for the latest week.

They said Trump’s aggressive trade policy was making it harder for businesses to plan ahead, a sentiment echoed by a Conference Board survey on Thursday, which showed confidence among chief executive officers plummeting in the second quarter.

Click here to read the rest.

Meanwhile, as the economy begins to show the cracks all of us expected with TACO’s economic policies, Paul Krugman adds insights into how TACO’s malicious stoppering of foreign students at US colleges and universities will impact the economy.

America Turns Its Back on the World

My wife and I are co-authors of a widely used textbook on the principles of economics, which is revised on a three-year cycle. When a new edition comes out, I normally visit a number of schools that might adopt it, usually giving a big public talk, a smaller technical seminar, and spending some time with students and faculty. I enjoy it, by the way; there are a lot of good, interesting people in U.S. education, and not just in the high-prestige schools.

So it was that at one point I found myself visiting Texas Tech in Lubbock. Yes, it seemed pretty remote to someone who has spent almost his whole life in the Northeast Corridor, but as usual the overall experience was very positive. And it was also surprisingly cosmopolitan: there were students from many nations. I just checked the numbers, and currently 30 percent of Texas Tech’s graduate students are international.

So it is all across America. Our nation’s ability to attract foreigners to study here is one of our great strengths. Or maybe I should say was one of our strengths.

According to Politico, a cable from Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, has directed U.S. embassies and consulates to halt all processing of visa applications from foreigners hoping to study in the United States. This is reportedly a temporary measure in preparation for a new system in which would-be students will be screened on the basis of their social media history. And you can be sure that the criteria for denying entry will go far beyond, you know, advocating terrorism. Probably asking “Why was Trump talking to West Point grads about trophy wives?” will be grounds for rejection.

This completely insane policy move is presumably a temper tantrum in response to a court’s rejection of the administration’s attempt to prevent Harvard from admitting foreign students, which was in turn a temper tantrum in response to Harvard’s rejection of demands from Trumpists that they be allowed to dictate the university’s hiring and curriculum.

The courts will probably reject this policy move, too, but I worry that Rubio and co. can put enough sand in the gears of the visa process to bring the entry of international students to a near halt. And even if they can’t, the clear message to students that they aren’t welcome (and may be arrested once here) will have an immensely chilling effect.

It’s hard to overstate the self-destructiveness of this move, and the war on higher education in general. This is madness even in purely economic terms.

We don’t often think of education as a major U.S. export, but it is. International students typically pay full tuition and require little or no financial aid. Here’s “education-related travel,” basically international students, compared with some other major U.S. exports:

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

And because international students typically pay full freight, while domestic students often don’t, foreign students help support higher education financially. That’s a big deal. My sense is that most people have no idea how important higher education is as a source of jobs, many of them middle-class. Here’s a comparison of employment in “Universities, colleges and professional schools” with employment in some politically prominent sectors:

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Apparently, Making America Great Again means destroying one of our most successful indust

Click here to read the rest.

Little PINO TACO leads the gang who can’t think straight. If you belive they don’t now what they’re doing.

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