tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34268007775219795782024-03-19T03:48:15.601-05:00Jake's Wisconsin FunhouseVentings from a guy with an unhealthy interest in budgets, policy, the dismal science, life in the Upper Midwest, and brilliant beverages.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4344125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-92015337991301603452024-03-12T20:33:00.006-05:002024-03-12T20:35:54.778-05:00Decent February job growth. But the boom times may be ending Been out of town so can't write too much, but I wanted to give a quick rundown on the February US jobs report that came out last Friday. </p>
If you look at the topline, the nunbers are an odd mix of job growth and higher unemployment. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">JUST IN: Another strong jobs report. The US economy added 275,000 jobs in February as the hiring boom continues. (Hiring was 229k in January and 290k in December.)<br><br>Unemployment rate: 3.9% —> It’s been below 4% for two years<br><br>Wages: 4.3% in past year (above 3.1% inflation) <a href="https://t.co/5xTWfBgBMo">pic.twitter.com/5xTWfBgBMo</a></p>— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) <a href="https://twitter.com/byHeatherLong/status/1766094937030864943?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 8, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The unemployment rate rose to 3.9% in February.<br>That's still low, but we need to watch this.<br><br>+334,000 more people were unemployed in February. The labor force (job seekers) increased by just +150,000. <br><br>Keep an eye on the unemployed number this spring <a href="https://t.co/m3iibP5463">pic.twitter.com/m3iibP5463</a></p>— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) <a href="https://twitter.com/byHeatherLong/status/1766098712562975063?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 8, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
But note the reference to 229,000 jobs in January and 290,000 in December. That's quite a bit less than the 353,000 in January and 333,000 in December that were reported in the previous jobs report. Which makes me wonder how this report would have been received if it was 108,000 jobs added and no revisions (which is the net change). Ironically, Wall Street probably woud have liked it more, since those numbers might have encouraged the Federal Reserve to cut rates sooner rather than later. </p>
On the flip side, the average increase of 265,000 jobs a month since December is the fastest 3-month growth period since last Summer. And while average hourly wages only rose by 0.14% in February, the average <em> weekly </em> wage rose by 0.44%, due to a longer average work week. That's the reverse of January's report, which had hourly wages up by 0.52%, but weekly wages were <em> down </em> by a little less than 0.1%. </p>
I also noticed that the strong growth in construction jobs continued in February, with 23,000 more jobs that month and 215,000 over the last year. It also contrasted with a loss of 4,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector, continuing a trend where hiring in manufacturing has mostly flatlined over the last 18 months even as construction keeps rolling along. </p>
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The leading sector in US job growth continues to be health care, with more than 66,000 jobs added in February, and more than 720,000 over the last year. After losing sizable amounts of employees during the COVID pandemic, health care employment finally got back into its pre-COVID levels in late-2022. And since then, it's been a strong and steady rise up, as nearly a million more people are working in the health care sector than they did before the pandemic. </p>
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To me, things are still in a decent place in the US job market in early 2024. Hiring continues, even if the pace is a bit slower than the boom times of 2021-early 2023. And while we should keep an eye as to whether unemployment keeps nudging higher, a 3.9% rate is still nowhere near a danger zone of recession. Wage growth is staying decent, and generally ahead of the rate of inflation (February was an exception for hourly wages...although not for weekly wages). </p>
Can't complain too much, but it also feels like things won't be as easy as they were. Suppose that's to be expected when things have been so good for so long, but that doesn't mean people haven't started to get used to it, and it'll be interesting to hear the spin if/when job growth falls to the 178,000-a-month pace that we had in the first 3 years under Donald Trump. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-76918235215987948442024-03-06T20:01:00.002-06:002024-03-06T20:01:17.209-06:00Updated "gold standard" jobs report show a big North/South difference in Wisconsin
Got the new, thorough figures from <a href=https://data.bls.gov/maps/cew/us> the "gold standard" Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) today. </a> This includes all sectors of the US jobs market, and goes down all the way into the county level for all states, including Wisconsin. </p>
In the numbers for our state, we had decent-but-not great gains in jobs between September 2022 and September 2023 - 27,736 total jobs added, a rate of slightly under 1.0%. What strikes me is the geographic disparity in job stats among Wisconsin counties. Most counties in the southern third of the state had gains, and some by quite a bit. But most counties in central and northern Wisconsin weren't doing as well, and many lost jobs. </p>
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Those areas in orange and red are many of the areas of Wisconsin that have turned toward Republicans in the Trump era, which sounds like a great example of the conditions that seed the <a href=https://whiteruralrage.com/> White Rural Rage phenomenon </a> that has been well-summarized in a new book by Paul Waldman and Tom Schaller. </p>
But if you try to pin this as a Biden-era trend, you're missing that the same thing was happening over the 12 months that ended in September 2019, when Donald Trump was allegedly presiding over "the greatest economy ever". </p>
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And given that Republicans are apparently going to try to play the <a href=https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1765416004023410697> "are you better off than you were four years ago" card </a> (vs 2020? Bold move there, Cotton!), let's compare to where we were in the pre-COVID times of September 2019, and where we were on September 2023. </p>
Overall, the QCEW says the state has gained a little over 41,500 jobs between September 2019 and September 2023 (+1.43%). But some places have gained quite a bit more than 1.43%. </p>
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On the numerical side, stop me if you've heard this before, but Dane County's growth is nearly twice as large as anyone else's. Most of the other largest gainers in the state are in either suburbs/exurbs, or counties on the border of another state. </p>
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But we also saw more than half of the state's counties lose jobs over those four years. The highest percentage losses were in rural counties in western, central and northern Wisconsin, with the biggest drop in Jackson County, which shed more than 1 out of the 10 jobs they had. </p>
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However, those large % losses are in small-population counties. When you look at the raw numbers, Milwaukee County had by far the largest deficit in jobs out of all of the counties in the state. Down 18,680 jobs in the QCEW reports. </p>
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Maybe that whole "defund Milwaukee" thing that WisGOP used as a strategy to stir up MAGA voters isn't something that works out well for an economy (note how Ozaukee County is also on that chart). Maybe the new sales tax and added investments into the state's largest City could reverse the bad numbers on jobs in the area as well. </p>
These new numbers illustrate that while the state is in better economic shape than it was 4 years ago, and continued to grow in 2023, there are places that have lagged behind. And just like how economic success often leads to more success and attractability for workers and businesses, lagging performance and job losses become something that requires a lot of effort to reverse. And Wisconsin lawmakers should be aware of the different outcomes and figure out ways to improve the laggards while keeping the good times going in the places that have been winning.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-9215237950037766642024-03-04T18:13:00.004-06:002024-03-04T18:13:56.178-06:00New revisions show 2022's unemployment info as better in Wisconsin, with 2023 not as good. We received some <a href=https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LASST550000000000003?amp%253bdata_tool=XGtable&output_view=data&include_graphs=true> updated unemployment data for Wisconsin dating back to 2019. </a> These revisions tell an interesting story for Wisconsin’s recovery from the COVID cutbacks of 2020. </p>
For 2019 and 2020, our losses and recovery from the pandemic's shutdowns and changes isn't much different - slightly higher labor force and employment (labor force up 11,300, employment up 6,200), and 2020's year-end unemployment rate went from 4.8% to 4.9%. </p>
The last 3 years had more significant monthly changes. What was originally reported as a drop in both labor force and the number of Wisconsinites working for much of 2022 now has little change at all, and 2023's increases for both employment and labor force aren't as large. But we've mostly ended up in the same place today. </P>
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This also is reflected in revisions to the number of Wisconsinites that were out of work. The number of unemployed didn't fall as fast in late 2021 and early 2022, but it also continued to go down through early 2023, unlike earlier reports indicated. Likewise, the number of Wisconsin unemployed rose for most of 2023, before leveling off in November and December. </p>
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And the changes in the unemployment rate tell a similar story, with the low of 2.6% now being reported in February, with a slow but steady rise happening over the next 8 months as all 3 parts of the household survey went up, before flattening out and staying at a rounded 3.4% for the last part of the year (sitting at 3.35% for December). </p>
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This report also listed annual averages for unemployment and the employment-population ratio that measures how much of Wisconsin’s total population is actually working. And we are continuing the tradition of this state having a high amount of its people in the work force, finishing 10th out of the 50 states. </p>
We had previously seen evidence of <a href=http://jakehasablog.blogspot.com/2023/12/wisconsin-gains-more-people-in-2023-and.html> good population growth and migration into Wisconsin for 2022 and 2023, </a> so perhaps that’s being reflected in the higher work force, with the majority of those people finding jobs. And maybe 2022 and 2023 marks some progress on the ability to balance child care and other home life stresses with the need for employees and workers in need of income, although we still have a ways to go. </P>
Later this week, we will see how the payrolls side of the jobs data has been revised to account for new and more refined information. When I did a check of the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) last week, I didn’t see much reason for a notable change either way. </p>
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We’ll see for sure on Thursday, along with what January’s jobs figures were for Wisconsin. But it indicates to me that we need to keep working to hold onto the gains we've had in the 2020s, and keep improving our competitiveness to continue to retain and attract people to what can still be a great state. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-81278093111564216352024-03-03T12:37:00.001-06:002024-03-03T12:37:09.249-06:00Construction's "cutback" in January isn't a big deal. And should be rebound in Feb.
One item that finished up 2023 in a strong place was the construction industry, and <a href=https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/us-construction-spending-unexpectedly-falls-in-january/ar-BB1jbeCS> we got a report on Friday to see how 2024 began. </a>
<blockquote> U.S. construction spending unexpectedly fell in January as weakness in outlays on public projects more than offset a moderate increase in private homebuilding. </p>
The Commerce Department said on Friday that construction spending dropped 0.2%. Data for December was revised higher to show construction spending increasing 1.1% instead of 0.9% as previously reported. </p>
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast construction spending rising 0.2%. Construction spending increased 11.7% year-on-year in January. </p>
Spending on private construction projects gained 0.1% in January after rising 0.8% in December. Investment in residential construction rose 0.2% after surging 1.4% in the prior month. </blockquote> So is this a big warning sign for a slowdown in 2024? It doesn't seem like it to me. Almost all of the decline for January can be accounted for in a $3.2 billion drop in public highway and street spending, which followed a runup of nearly 14% in the last 3 months in that area of construction. So that seems like a breather and/or short-term slowdown due to the brutal weather in mid-January. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-AmkZgONGy95uvb9guuXCGWjM-i0tTnK79nEFLsjoS_jqH-dWoMHLlSVXbbTWkDfMitcl2Gd48tlGxYM23kcjlkKU9zqpF1Ozc-mZJCgMHhfCIil7PnNg6_oHkSlSFL-HHf1nC6qvNG1Ltj4QBCTsYjmMPlqJY194hF869zn_W134P4CSOKFXr7kN1753/s480/image002.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="487" data-original-width="733" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-AmkZgONGy95uvb9guuXCGWjM-i0tTnK79nEFLsjoS_jqH-dWoMHLlSVXbbTWkDfMitcl2Gd48tlGxYM23kcjlkKU9zqpF1Ozc-mZJCgMHhfCIil7PnNg6_oHkSlSFL-HHf1nC6qvNG1Ltj4QBCTsYjmMPlqJY194hF869zn_W134P4CSOKFXr7kN1753/s480/image002.png"/></a></div> </p>
Given that we've had a record-warm February (especially in the cold-weather states where construction usually is dormant this time of year), I would expect some of that seasonally-adjusted decline in January to reverse in the next month. </p>
We also saw construction in single-family home building continue to rise in January, which is a trend that we've had for 9 straight months at this time. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnYbx0K1nxFmqAMFahysgK_NQWTr6o9QVdVFVji4bf_FYhruTLlqWOjYWfY_fxuX5tzCXeg0LfyyKxSE16i_Lyv7_hMwfKDVDLerb7VHoQBm5XOOwZyNpciI62e9VfT9xufDCxj1afl38U28T8BGL2wmrw39P-kbq4US7pufSepIm13Wag-LwhNFnidd8z/s480/image001.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="468" data-original-width="729" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnYbx0K1nxFmqAMFahysgK_NQWTr6o9QVdVFVji4bf_FYhruTLlqWOjYWfY_fxuX5tzCXeg0LfyyKxSE16i_Lyv7_hMwfKDVDLerb7VHoQBm5XOOwZyNpciI62e9VfT9xufDCxj1afl38U28T8BGL2wmrw39P-kbq4US7pufSepIm13Wag-LwhNFnidd8z/s480/image001.png"/></a></div> </p>
And manufacturing construction continued its boom in January, which directly goes back to legislation that President Biden and Dems backed in 2022. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Another month, another record high for US manufacturing construction!<br><br>Electronics manufacturing set a new record high in the wake of CHIPS Act incentives for semiconductor fabricators, and transportation manufacturing hit the highest level in 7 years amidst IRA EV incentives <a href="https://t.co/LOVE8odLNH">pic.twitter.com/LOVE8odLNH</a></p>— Joey Politano 🏳️🌈 (@JosephPolitano) <a href="https://twitter.com/JosephPolitano/status/1763611580292292637?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 1, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
So I'd expect hiring to continue in construction for the February jobs report that hits later this week, and given that we are still seeing elevated spending for bridges and roads from the federal government in this year, I think this is going to stay strong at least for the start of 2024. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-85734357070454376552024-03-01T19:16:00.004-06:002024-03-01T19:38:20.249-06:00Evers vetoes biggest GOP tax cuts, as he should. But could he sign it with Medicaid expansion? I was wondering when we'd find out what Governor Evers would do with the billions in tax cuts the GOP Legislature sent up to his desk. And we found out today. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/GovEvers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GovEvers</a> today vetoed three GOP income tax bills, including one to expand the income covered by the state's second-lowest income tax bracket.<br><br>See the release:<a href="https://t.co/rpG6OH8QYb">https://t.co/rpG6OH8QYb</a></p>— JR Ross (@jrrosswrites) <a href="https://twitter.com/jrrosswrites/status/1763654383932260785?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 1, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
The three bills vetoed would have cut the tax rates from 5.3% to 4.4% for married Wisconsin couples making taxable incomes between $38,000 and $150,000 (and everyone above that would have also gotten that tax cut, by the way), exempted income for senior Wisconsinites up to $75,000 single/$150,000 married couples (which sounds good until you realize Social Security and military pensions are already exempted from state income taxes), and increase the tax credit for married couples (to offset the "marriage penalty" in the state's tax code) from a maximum of $480 to $870. </p>
<a href=https://www.wispolitics.com/2024/gov-evers-takes-action-on-three-bills-5/> Here's how Evers explained his vetoes. </a>
<blockquote> Gov. Tony Evers today vetoed three Republican-backed bills, which, if enacted, would set Wisconsin on a path toward insolvency, leaving the state unable to meet its basic duties to provide adequate funding for programs and services provided by the state, including education, healthcare, child care, public safety, and aid to local governments in the 2025-27 biennium and beyond. If enacted, together, the three bills would reduce revenues by such a margin that it would likely force the state, even with ordinary revenue growth, to partially or fully drain the Budget Stabilization Fund—also known as the state’s ‘rainy day’ fund—just to provide bare minimum inflationary adjustments to key programs in the 2025-27 biennium. </p>
“I have been proud to sign several income tax cuts during my time in office, including keeping—and, in fact, well exceeding—my promise to provide a ten percent, middle-class tax cut targeted to Wisconsin’s working families,” noted Gov. Evers in his veto messages. “During my first term in office, I proudly signed one of the largest tax cuts in Wisconsin state history, which provided $2 billion in individual income tax relief over the biennium and approximately $1 billion annually going forward. Through this historic tax cut, combined with the tax cuts I signed during my first year in office alone, 86 percent of Wisconsin taxpayers have seen an income tax cut of 15 percent or more, with 2.4 million taxpayers receiving relief. Through the income tax cuts I have already signed into law during my time in office, Wisconsin taxpayers will see $1.5 billion in tax relief annually, primarily targeted to the middle class. </blockquote> Evers is correct on the assertion that signing all 4 of these tax cuts would not only get rid of most of the $3.15 billion cushion that we have in this current budget, but also screw up the next budget that starts in July 2025. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4UOkj1lnzpHn54GlsGydcNhRC42Caw2DDVU0Qi1CoOMmMpS13Tlm97WbGm1PeiSLE8-UXCBKCw0J_gk-OFzU9osAssQNYt-CRdnQFJ_lWTJYqUIUlQvdmtYRY3V_4ozyNktKIQ3XFqbZ7SwtKJ5kWsn44S4jbc3W39ZqcKoriCO4aCNKxL5lR44kC0iXU/s480/image008.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4UOkj1lnzpHn54GlsGydcNhRC42Caw2DDVU0Qi1CoOMmMpS13Tlm97WbGm1PeiSLE8-UXCBKCw0J_gk-OFzU9osAssQNYt-CRdnQFJ_lWTJYqUIUlQvdmtYRY3V_4ozyNktKIQ3XFqbZ7SwtKJ5kWsn44S4jbc3W39ZqcKoriCO4aCNKxL5lR44kC0iXU/s480/image008.png"/></a></div> </p>
And especially given how we are just at the start of tax-filing season, it seems prudent to make sure we don’t have revenues disappointing even more than they already have been. </p>
Not too surprising, although I thought the expansion of the married couple credit might make it (it gets larger in order to catch up to inflation on the "marriage penalty"). And keeping the child care tax credit seems like something that makes everyone happy, and doesn't cost all that much (around $161 million a year). Well, at least I THINK Tony will keep it since he didn't veto it. Maybe he's waiting for some press event next week or something. </p>
But Evers made another statement in the press release announcing the veto that grabbed my attention. <blockquote> In addition to threatening the state’s fiscal health moving forward, if enacted, the bills could result in the state having to repay billions of dollars in federal relief funds it received under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. This would completely reverse the progress made in the last five years to improve the state’s fiscal condition even under the best of economic circumstances, jeopardizing critical investments to expand high-speed internet, bolster the state’s workforce, build healthcare infrastructure, support law enforcement and public safety, and address the child care crisis, among other high-priority needs across the state. </blockquote> I'm familiar with the idea of the state having to be cautious on tax cuts in the possibility of having to give back ARPA stimulus funds, but is that still a relevant concern in 2024? </p>
<a href=https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/lfb/budget/2023_25_biennial_budget/302_budget_papers/366_general_fund_taxes_income_and_franchise_taxes_overview_of_broad_based_income_and_franchise_tax_reductions.pdf> Here’s how the Legislative Fiscal Bureau described the "ARPA and tax cuts" situation for Wisconsin last Summer. </a> <blockquote> ....[I]f certain law changes reduce revenue compared to inflation-adjusted 2018-19 baseline revenues by more than a de minimis amount (1% of the baseline revenues), then the net reduction in tax revenues are considered to be in violation of the offset provision unless the state identifies countervailing increases in revenue or spending reductions. Under the rule, the amount of SFRF monies [sent to states in the ARPA bill] to be recouped is limited to at the lesser of: (a) the reduction in net tax revenue (measured as the difference between the baseline and actual revenue as of the end of the reporting year); or (b) the aggregate amount of reductions in tax revenues caused by covered changes minus the sum of: (i) reductions in spending compared to the inflation adjusted 2018-19 baseline (net of SFRF funds); and (ii) increases in revenue from other covered changes in law. </p>
DOA is responsible for reporting SFRF-related expenditures under ARPA to Treasury. In a memorandum dated June 2, 2023, DOA informed the Governor and the DOA Secretary that "the state may reduce taxes and fees by $256 million in fiscal year 2023-24 and $458 million in fiscal year 2024-25 before any federal SFRF monies may be subject to possible recoupment" under current estimates. </p>
13. Based on the DOA estimates, any covered law change that reduces state tax revenues by more than $256 million in fiscal year 2023-24 or $458 million in fiscal year 2024-25 could potentially be subject to recoupment under ARPA unless the state can identify a similar-sized change in law that increases state revenue or decreases spending relative to the inflation-adjusted 2018-19 baseline. The DOA memorandum did not indicate baseline expenditures for 2018-19, which are needed to determine amounts that could be subject to recoupment. </p>
DOA's estimate does not adjust baseline revenues after 2018-19 to account for the phase in of fiscal effects of exempt law changes that are not covered under the ARPA recoupment provision for various reasons, such as being enacted prior to the covered period or federalizing state law. In January, 2023, this Office sought clarification from Treasury whether baseline revenues should reflect exempt changes in law, but Treasury has not yet responded. </blockquote> Basically, any tax cuts need to be offset by </p>
1. Extra revenue resulting from growth beyond inflation. <br>
2. State spending cuts that go beyond the amount of federal ARPA money that may be used to “fill in” the difference. <br>
3. Tax increases in other areas. </p>
Wisconsin’s 2018-19 tax revenues were a total amount of $17.341 billion. Then add in a relatively high amount of inflation in the 4 ½ years since June 2019, and (based on CPI changes) that ”baseline” ends up being just over $21.04 billion today, with 5 more months of inflation left until the end of the 2024 Fiscal Year. </p>
At the time of the LFB’s publication, it was estimating revenues of around $21.4 billion for June 2024, so I can see where those numbers come from. Then <a href=https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/lfb/revenue_estimates/188_january_24_2024.pdf> state revenue estimates for the 2024 Fiscal Year were lowered to $21.055 billion in January, </a> so in theory there is little to no cushion to be had without risking some clawback of ARPA funds. </p>
But would the Treasury actually do that? I doubt it, based on events of the last year. For example, in January 2023, <a href=https://www.courthousenews,.com/treasury-department-cant-enforce-american-rescue-plan-tax-cut-rule-11th-circuit-says/> an Appeals Court in the South ruled that states didn’t need to worry about any tax cuts being clawed back. </a> <blockquote> A provision of the American Rescue Plan Act which would have prevented states from using pandemic relief funds to offset new tax cuts cannot be enforced, a unanimous panel of the 11th Circuit ruled on Friday. </p>
The Atlanta-based appeals court found that the rule barring states from using relief funds to offset a decease in their net tax revenue through the end of 2024 violates the spending clause of the U.S. Constitution. The language of the provision is too ambiguous and leaves state governments unable to ascertain the conditions imposed on their acceptance of the money, the 42-page ruling explains. </p>
“The Rescue Plan’s offset provision has affected the states’ sovereign authority to tax by binding them to a deal with ambiguous terms and placing them on the hook for billions of dollars in potential recoupment actions,” U.S. Circuit Judge Andrew Brasher wrote on behalf of the panel. </blockquote> That ruling also offers a great example of Confederate thinking, with “state sovereignty” references, and a belief in allowing red states to take huge amounts of federal dollars <a href=https://www.moneygeek.com/living/states-most-reliant-federal-government/> (which disproportionately come from blue states), </a> and then use the cushion of DC dollars to cut their state's taxes. </p>
That Appeals Court ruling came after <a href=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-missouri-tax-cuts-covid-american-rescue-plan/> the US Supreme Court chose earlier in that same month not to deal with an attempt from Missouri and other states to get the ARPA tax cut provision thrown out. </a> I'll note that Missouri's argument that the Feds couldn't do this wasn't outright rejected, but lost because the case was a hypothetical, and not a real situation at the time. <blockquote> A federal district court dismissed Missouri's case, finding the state lacked legal standing to challenge the tax mandate, and its suit was premature. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit affirmed, finding that the state hadn't alleged "any intent to engage in conduct" forbidden by the tax mandate on its face, or Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's interpretation of the provision. </p>
Missouri, according to the 8th Circuit, needed to allege that tax cuts under consideration by its legislature would reduce net revenue, and that the state would fail to offset that reduction through allowable means. Missouri's failure to do so meant it "has only alleged a conjectural or hypothetical injury, not one that is actual or imminent. It has also not alleged a future injury that is certainly impending or even likely to occur," the appeals court found. </blockquote> As a reminder, APRA funds need to be fully set aside by the end of calendar year 2024, and spent out by the end of 2026. But these numbers are tracked on a yearly basis, so in theory the amount of ARPA money that would need to be clawed back from a tax cut would be funds used in 2024, and I can't think that much state-level ARPA money will be used in the 2024 or 2025 Fiscal Year. So I’d say the risk that we’d have to pay anything back is very small. </p>
But I do know of one way to make sure the budget stays in a good place AND allow room to cut taxes. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Would <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wiright?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#wiright</a> trade tax cuts for Medicaid expansion?<br><br>GOP income tax cut costs $750 mil a year, Medicaid expansion saves a similar amount. <a href="https://twitter.com/GovEvers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GovEvers</a> should call the bluff, and make that offer.<br><br>Let's see if Robbin' Vos ends a 10 1/2 month paid vacation for that. Or not.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wiunion?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#wiunion</a> <a href="https://t.co/pR0VINqT82">https://t.co/pR0VINqT82</a></p>— JakeEdwards (@JakeMadtown) <a href="https://twitter.com/JakeMadtown/status/1763190447281729665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 29, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
That’s right, we could pay for these tax cuts if we stopped being the only non-Confederate state east of the Mississippi to take the ACA’s Medicaid expansion. In the most recent budget, Governor Evers’ administration estimated that taking Medicaid expansion would save $1.62 billion over 2 years, which just happens to be similar to the ongoing cost of $752 million a year for the GOP’s plan to cut the 5.3% tax rate to 4.4% for middle-class and upper-middle class income levels. </p>
Seems like it would be a good idea for Evers to call the Legislature off of their paid vacation with a special session with a simple ask "Give me Medicaid expansion, I'll give you the rate cuts." It allows for Wisconsinites to see higher take-home pay as early as July 1, due to the adjustment of withholding tables (a one-time expense we can afford), and Wisconsinites would still get a sizable tax refund in early 2025, due to the first 6 months of higher withholdings. </p>
Who says no? It gives more medical coverage to working-class Wisconsinites, gives a tax cut for the middle and upper classes, and keeps our budget in good shape. This seems like the right way to do it, if GOPs and Governor Evers actually want to get it done. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-33564826810786544212024-02-29T16:21:00.002-06:002024-02-29T16:21:21.494-06:00Lots of new income in January, but a lot of new taxes and mediocre spending I said yesterday that we'd get a better idea of how the US economy kicked off 2024. So let's look at the <a href=https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2024-02/pi0124.pdf> income and spending report for January </a> and see what it tells us.
<blockquote> Personal income increased $233.7 billion (1.0 percent at a monthly rate) in January, according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI), personal income less personal current taxes, increased $67.6 billion (0.3 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $43.9 billion (0.2 percent). </p>
The PCE price index increased 0.3 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.4 percent. Real DPI decreased less than 0.1 percent in January and real PCE decreased 0.1 percent; goods decreased 1.1 percent and services increased 0.4 percent. </blockquote> Lots to unpack in this one. Income up by 1%? But real disposable income and spending down? What’s going on with this? </p>
First, what caused the jump in income? It looks to be a combination of year-end dividends from stocks (that for some reason is recorded in January’s figures), and the annual cost-of-living increase in Social Security payments. In contrast, wages and salaries had its lowest increase in 4 months and 2nd lowest since since the end of 2022. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV1f1rCTdewjnAVUl-PakumoVhbkPvXqu5QXzdZYpsemOHOeKzX-EQCCnSUvWwOBiy5SN9SP9Q_H6Drt-MIESeEXnklEHzywv9ChTjrynm5bY22dKXW_rk8dxzR847A214fwo-uWw0Yh6x1OBeKE90ce3eR4FIPDHkt6oE-lCSOkruNA7rZ4oFs0TIGOL1/s480/image002.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="342" data-original-width="537" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV1f1rCTdewjnAVUl-PakumoVhbkPvXqu5QXzdZYpsemOHOeKzX-EQCCnSUvWwOBiy5SN9SP9Q_H6Drt-MIESeEXnklEHzywv9ChTjrynm5bY22dKXW_rk8dxzR847A214fwo-uWw0Yh6x1OBeKE90ce3eR4FIPDHkt6oE-lCSOkruNA7rZ4oFs0TIGOL1/s480/image002.png"/></a></div> </P>
At the same time, there was a $166 billion (annual basis) increase in taxes paid in January. So I looked at that, and it seems to be a historically normal occurrence that happens in years where the stock market goes up, and people pay their capital gains and related year-end taxes. And these January changes have been much larger in the last few years. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ovCZvoKUwiQL0OJgvDjMMLESspwmuSEcuTo-HNBsoFeSqSgxFdrkbNrbYTXYzHFbQHClypJeRmj6Mts7uqy7otwdhL68cmVVV1z-XulQxr-h9peZ1eyDlGCqNrkggVxsPpmg3BUouD9SCvlZ5ukGw9uRu9QpYb7hbDYzg2OOh8JLow_LSeiKfKsJnagn/s480/image004.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ovCZvoKUwiQL0OJgvDjMMLESspwmuSEcuTo-HNBsoFeSqSgxFdrkbNrbYTXYzHFbQHClypJeRmj6Mts7uqy7otwdhL68cmVVV1z-XulQxr-h9peZ1eyDlGCqNrkggVxsPpmg3BUouD9SCvlZ5ukGw9uRu9QpYb7hbDYzg2OOh8JLow_LSeiKfKsJnagn/s480/image004.png"/></a></div> </p>
And the disparity between a big drop in spending on goods and a sizable increase in spending on services was also an oddity. <blockquote> The $43.9 billion increase in current-dollar PCE in January reflected a $121.0 billion increase in spending for services that was partly offset by a $77.0 billion decrease in spending for goods. Within services, the largest contributors to the increase were housing and utilities, financial services and insurance (led by financial service charges, fees, and commissions), and health care (led by hospitals). Within goods, the leading contributors to the decrease were motor vehicles and parts (led by new light trucks), gasoline and other energy goods (led by gasoline), and other nondurable goods (led by prescription drugs). </blockquote> I note the increase in health care and insurance especially. Is that from jacking up rates to start the new year, which also would bump up inflation for the month? Conversely, is the decline in prescription drug spending due to the fact that some people need to spend up their allowance at the end of December, and then things revert with the new year? </p>
So I can’t draw a lot from these figures, as much as I would like to. If anything, I think the numbers are a bit soft because of the decline in wage/salary growth, but still a growing economy and little to be alarmed about at this point. </p>
When the year-start oddities go away in February, next month’s data is going to give a much clearer indication as to whether 2023’s year-end boom in continuing, or if we are taking a breather after such a blowout 2nd half (or worse). We also will get new jobs reports for February and similar information on 2024's second month in the next 8 days. But for now, based on today’s data, I’d assume the while the economy might not be the rocketship we had a couple of months ago, but is still looking good. </P>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-26321205565985975182024-02-28T18:09:00.006-06:002024-02-28T18:09:52.385-06:00More proof of a strong economy as 2023 ended. Tomorrow tells us more about 2024.
After a strong initial report, we got an updated look at how much the economy grew in the last 3 months of 2023. And an already-good picture may have gotten slightly brighter after this GDP report came out. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">US Q4’23 GDP: revised down on slower inventory build to 3.2%. But a look under the hood suggests momentum was building into Q1’24. Consumption revised up to 3%, real final sales to 3.5% from 3.2%, final sales to domestic purchases to 3.1% from 2.7%-which excludes inventories &…</p>— Joseph Brusuelas (@joebrusuelas) <a href="https://twitter.com/joebrusuelas/status/1762845857056002333?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 28, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Today's <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Economic?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Economic</a> Indicator Results<br><br>GDP (Revised): 3.2% vs 3.3% est.🔴<br><br>Personal Consumption: 3.0% vs 2.7% est.🟢<br><br>GDP Price Index: 1.6% vs 1.5% est.🟢<br><br>Core PCE Price Index: 2.1% vs 2.0% est.🟢<br><br>Wholesale Inventories: -0.1% vs 0.2% est.🔴</p>— Markets Today (@marketsday) <a href="https://twitter.com/marketsday/status/1762871086650479046?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 28, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
I don't see how a 0.1% change here or there changes what the overall story was for a strong 4th Quarter in the US economy. Consumption was revised up a little more than that, which to me is possibly the one significant revision to note with this, as it matches the positive vibes that were emerging in much of the US. But we've also seen <a href=https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-retail-sales-fall-sharply-january-weekly-jobless-claims-decline-2024-02-15/> some soft numbers in retal sales and other areas for January, </a>and that's what I care about a lot more than what might have been happening 8 weeks ago. </p>
If you're still on INFLATION WATCH, I suppose you could be concerned about increased spending and lower inventories. But that's also the "good reason" for inflation, as it shows strong demand, and a need to keep adding products and workers to meet it. </p>
We'll get an updated picture of January's data with the income and spending report, which will come out tomorrow. And the PCE and spending figures for that one will be what Wall Streeters are going to react to as they try to front-run when the Fed will (or won't) lower rates this year. Along with unemployment claims, it feels like Leap Day will also be a big data day if you're trying to get a gauge on where the economy is, and may be going. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-10188300149912960912024-02-26T18:42:00.004-06:002024-02-26T18:44:04.506-06:00In 2024, we're less likely to see a 2022-style spike in gas pricesThis week marks the two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a move that quickly resulted in a significant price spike at the pump for Americans for much of the rest of 2022, and led to overall inflation rising by an annual rate of nearly 11% over the next 4 months. </p>
Right before the Russians rolled across the Ukrainian border, <a href=https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GASREGW> the average nationwide gas price </a>was already on the rise, and was sitting at $3.53 a gallon. After peaking at over $5 a gallon in mid-June, prices fell back to their pre-invasion levels. And today, we’re paying less for gas than we were in February 2022. </p>
But I went a little further back into the history of US gas prices on or near February 20 (that’s the approximate midpoint over the years), and what you may not realize is that we are paying less for gasoline today than we were 10 years ago. And that the lowest pump prices came in February 2016, 9 months before Donald Trump was elected president. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Pv779NXcm4cBYI1ybs973f31cRv7MXnKA8uwaU7TDPtCD1joJt0PxHfwi9fNoESYDNm8qJv-1Eo4HWDtrTP1zrZPB5cL1TRsGBe5AzGVG8-5dns6ayzKRGyerzMiSoznRttyF22GmAN21ZGekosWsXwZ5aZ2MmKWwotBrHvahjj6TC0rpvwa2rDefQCl/s500/image001.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="500" data-original-height="449" data-original-width="737" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Pv779NXcm4cBYI1ybs973f31cRv7MXnKA8uwaU7TDPtCD1joJt0PxHfwi9fNoESYDNm8qJv-1Eo4HWDtrTP1zrZPB5cL1TRsGBe5AzGVG8-5dns6ayzKRGyerzMiSoznRttyF22GmAN21ZGekosWsXwZ5aZ2MmKWwotBrHvahjj6TC0rpvwa2rDefQCl/s500/image001.png"/></a></div> </p>
In addition, next month marks the four-year anniversary of COVID-19 becoming a worldwide pandemic, and many American businesses shutting down to try to contain the virus, and work-from-home becoming more common in this country. So this also means February 2024 is a good time to compare the pre-COVID gas usage numbers of February 2020, and see how things have changed today. </p>
What you’ll find is that not only were Americans using the most gas when it was cheapest in 2016, but we also saw Americans react to the price spike on 2022 by cutting back on their consumption at the same time that the Biden Administration started up additional incentives for alternative fuels and/or electric vehicles. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirB0dIHhigY3I3U-sbsK44Mm63B4Hen08DnPRppsRaoH56HxrW0qLSSGoKJv0beKaiDybNJc5o_wzTi-joBm4fetYh85VuokeRmaUs4OKlhzdkW3D2XX9Pon79rCSShHJ6IHyr4ak7PDpY34gSeLkcrsBsDv9nIMYqasC6AHFcIrVoRAi7zMcDAoEV7k1L/s480/image004.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="453" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirB0dIHhigY3I3U-sbsK44Mm63B4Hen08DnPRppsRaoH56HxrW0qLSSGoKJv0beKaiDybNJc5o_wzTi-joBm4fetYh85VuokeRmaUs4OKlhzdkW3D2XX9Pon79rCSShHJ6IHyr4ak7PDpY34gSeLkcrsBsDv9nIMYqasC6AHFcIrVoRAi7zMcDAoEV7k1L/s480/image004.png"/></a></div></p>
So today, even with millions more jobs than we had in the 2010s, we are using less gas in February than at any time in the last decade, save for the COVID-wracked time of February 2021. </P>
At the same time, the <a href=https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/why-is-the-us-producing-more-oil-and-natural-gas-than-ever-under-biden/ar-BB1iERLG> US is pumping more oil than at any time in our history. </a>Which helps explain why gasoline supplies are significantly more plentiful than they were 2 years ago. And gas is more available in America than in any of the three Februaries that happened before COVID became a thing. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2QYQYYWSeZGfUmONkaGUN3yjEVpHkNaf_0jZOe2Ue-qaTl_KcDofZz2WVpgJ1VPqNYI66bbPvJZifj62904Tv7Nlf41ttv0LZGZXJ-e5tDKuxGLtuKxMYYmdYOiV9WrQ1sLB2-AtMg7COPFm_5uXT6two3utzJ4-UtPJAvf3exNb0f7zufc-Dhv41zfWg/s480/image006.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="473" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2QYQYYWSeZGfUmONkaGUN3yjEVpHkNaf_0jZOe2Ue-qaTl_KcDofZz2WVpgJ1VPqNYI66bbPvJZifj62904Tv7Nlf41ttv0LZGZXJ-e5tDKuxGLtuKxMYYmdYOiV9WrQ1sLB2-AtMg7COPFm_5uXT6two3utzJ4-UtPJAvf3exNb0f7zufc-Dhv41zfWg/s480/image006.png"/></a></div> </p>
And despite this easily-accessible information, check out the BS Republicans are still trying to sell to voters. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Pres. Biden’s war on U.S. energy has made our country more dependent on foreign energy, propping up our adversaries, all while weakening our energy independence.<br><br>Read my latest column about Biden's policies & what <a href="https://twitter.com/HouseGOP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@HouseGOP</a> is doing about it in Congress:<a href="https://t.co/5clgssVAlr">https://t.co/5clgssVAlr</a></p>— Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (@RepFitzgerald) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepFitzgerald/status/1761084271446348236?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 23, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </P>
Look, I get that taking <a href=https://madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/on-the-capitol-scott-fitzgerald-hears-the-trump-train-a-comin/article_5e61b674-f06f-54b4-bc7d-b58c225dad37.html> a ride on the Trump Train </a> and being addicted to Koch makes a guy say some stupid stuff, but this statement by <strike> insurrectionist </strike> Representative Fitzgerald couldn’t be more off-base in February 2024. </p>
Heck, the rise in February gas prices was higher in the 4 years before COVID than it’s been in the 4 years since then! </p>
<strong> % Change in gas prices </strong> <br>
Feb 2016 - Feb 2020 +40.5% <br>
Feb 2020 – Feb 2024 +34.6% </p>
Think that reality is being told to low info voters or MAGA-World? Or that we were paying more for a gallon of gas a decade ago (and in 2013, and in 2012, and in 2011) than we are today? BEFORE we account for inflation. </p>
I’d argue that due to moves encouraged by the Biden Administration and related awareness and changes by American workers and consumers, we’re less vulnerable now to gas price spikes due to foreign events and/or manipulation than we were in the Trump years. And gas is more available to Americans in 2024 due to moves and adjustments like this. </p>
This is why I’m not sweating the recent rise in gas prices. Some of this seems to be seasonally-related (in non-COVID years, gas prices generally rise between January and mid-Summer, and fall back after that), and any oil price rises we may have in 2024 would likely be trader and speculation-driven over actual supply and demand. </p>
That doesn’t mean we should be complacent about the situation, but it does mean we need to be telling this truth, and getting out ahead of any monkey business that oil oligarchs (both foreign and domestic) may try to attempt in the next 8 ½ months. We’re fine on gas prices and the supply-and-demand situation for energy, unless someone manipulates the market and screws it up for the rest of us. </p>
<iframe width="480" height="290" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P8E7_u2qgjE" title="learn it know it live it" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe> </p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-36533462699781802342024-02-25T11:07:00.005-06:002024-02-25T11:12:54.960-06:00New "gold standard" QCEW shows slower job growth in 2023, but faster in 2022 Last week, we got the latest release of the "gold standard" Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), at least for statewide job numbers and the largest counties. And I noticed that the QCEW said that job growth was only 1.5% between September 2022 and September 2023 vs the recently-revised monthly reports saying job growth was 2.0% in that time period. Does that mean we've been overestimating job growth and the Biden Boom isn't as much of a thing? </p>
But my worries ended quickly when I took a longer-range view over the last 3 years, because it appears that this disparity reflects that the monthly jobs reports were <em>under</em>estimating job growth over the previous 2 years, and “caught up” with benchmark revisions that were made earlier this month. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWKWwV0-Ck3RXV7hcSBOuEBGbIvL_6YO0lqrPjQZGa3ET5N9UHAQ4QUieW_QVPuKtv96tK_Co2BiU_raZkT36ZG6bayH6lRXSWFqO1VByNMDbrWqwgHQzUfW7tBLg0J1rHARBXjhyphenhyphenHp7WEUuKfpbojl__gmivD0frIlRxFXmYVcE-DflIGKKpS4jDP8TRJ/s480/image002.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="502" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWKWwV0-Ck3RXV7hcSBOuEBGbIvL_6YO0lqrPjQZGa3ET5N9UHAQ4QUieW_QVPuKtv96tK_Co2BiU_raZkT36ZG6bayH6lRXSWFqO1VByNMDbrWqwgHQzUfW7tBLg0J1rHARBXjhyphenhyphenHp7WEUuKfpbojl__gmivD0frIlRxFXmYVcE-DflIGKKpS4jDP8TRJ/s480/image002.png"/></a></div></p>
Still, let’s see where the QCEW goes for the 4th quarter, as the monthly jobs reports indicated there was a slowdown in growth in October and November, but that a total of 686,000 jobs were added in December and January. </p>
As for our state, we didn’t even grow as fast as the nation, ending up at 0.95% for job growth with 27,736 additional jobs between Sept 2022 and Sept 2023. That puts us down in 42nd for the US, and 6th out of 7 Midwest states. </p>
<strong> QCEW job growth, Midwest Sept 2022-Sept 2023 </strong> <br>
Mich +1.85% <br>
Minn +1.36% <br>
Ohio +1.35% <br>
Ind. +1.01% <br>
Iowa +0.99% <br>
<strong> Wis. +0.95% </strong> <br>
Ill. +0.82% </p>
Not where we want to be in the big picture of things, but not surprising given our lower-than-normal population growth and the fact that our unemployment rate had dropped to 3.1% by Sept 2022, indicating a full-employment situation. </p>
I’ll also add that comparing the QCEW and monthly jobs reports in Wisconsin tells a similar story to what we saw in the nation as a whole – QCEW said we added more jobs in 2021 and 2022, then the monthly jobs reports caught up to those figures in 2023. </p>
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This means that I wouldn’t expect much for revisions when the annual benchmark revisions for Wisconsin’s jobs situation come out in a couple of weeks. And while the total job growth is lagging, I’m not going to complain about an unemployment rate in the low 3’s with an increasing labor force. </p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-67992180762141562652024-02-22T18:46:00.006-06:002024-02-22T22:23:45.081-06:00CBO gives a better outlook for US budget and economy The Congressional Budget Office <a href=https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2024-02/59710-Outlook-2024.pdf> recently updated its Budget and Economic Outlook for the next 10 years. </a> And it’s got some good news on the demographic front. <blockquote> In CBO’s current projections, the number of people who are working or actively seeking employment continues to expand at a moderate pace through 2026. Higher population growth in those years, mainly from increased immigration, more than offsets a decline in labor force participation due to slowing demand for workers and the rising average age of the population. A large proportion of recent and projected immigrants are expected to be 25 to 54 years old—adults in their prime working years. </blockquote>
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This increased amount of immigration means the future increase in population is well above what the CBO projected this time last year. </p>
2023 <br>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8CPvMdGZU9tEaXyW0jVef14RMty3m6tq_ux0-5L9jGVNJS7vlMEJ1HfiqguB8MROrDEqdgAziEneQf-RSoz4_REqthQjT5jlgHoW9FE30Pu1qW1MmkdsvenKAa9nv8ij7Mh4jHoDYwMQHxpHTYA6HF7kBIzH3Bw5r2RDqhqUf8LlMT0QVh9k5XNrsXRC0/s480/US%20Demos%202023-2053.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8CPvMdGZU9tEaXyW0jVef14RMty3m6tq_ux0-5L9jGVNJS7vlMEJ1HfiqguB8MROrDEqdgAziEneQf-RSoz4_REqthQjT5jlgHoW9FE30Pu1qW1MmkdsvenKAa9nv8ij7Mh4jHoDYwMQHxpHTYA6HF7kBIzH3Bw5r2RDqhqUf8LlMT0QVh9k5XNrsXRC0/s480/US%20Demos%202023-2053.png"/></a></div> </p>
2024 <br>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDZN7Zt3AlbDg85AdZUEwwAWfOpvrqCWTYvfsfwGRFVQdaQ9C6iV92R7jCoFJOhK2MmcK8A2CzRrvWVigjbp6gW6P08s4NrT0Gp5rmUfAAngLg898vLxwVejL_FufoVrqsjvhXqTZm9qTC9AwO79EVxJx1TbemRsQKV8ZAuQGcOYnSFj939Mi6FELjPX1E/s465/US%20Demos%202024-2054.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="465" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="531" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDZN7Zt3AlbDg85AdZUEwwAWfOpvrqCWTYvfsfwGRFVQdaQ9C6iV92R7jCoFJOhK2MmcK8A2CzRrvWVigjbp6gW6P08s4NrT0Gp5rmUfAAngLg898vLxwVejL_FufoVrqsjvhXqTZm9qTC9AwO79EVxJx1TbemRsQKV8ZAuQGcOYnSFj939Mi6FELjPX1E/s465/US%20Demos%202024-2054.png"/></a></div> </p>
The CBO says this added immigration is going to keep the economy from having a larger slowdown in growth in the coming years. <blockquote> CBO is now projecting a lower average rate of economic growth from 2024 to 2027 than it did last February (2.0 percent a year versus 2.4 percent), largely because of slower projected growth in sectors of the economy that are sensitive to interest rates, such as consumer spending, investment, and net exports. <strong> The downward revision to economic growth resulting from higher projected interest rates is partly offset by an increase in economic activity over the 2024–2027 period stemming from greater projected net immigration. From 2028 to 2033, real GDP is now projected to grow at a higher average rate than CBO forecast last February (2.0 percent a year versus 1.8 percent), mainly because of faster projected growth in output per worker and the larger labor force. </strong> </p>
CBO has lowered its projection of the average unemployment rate over the 2024–2027 period (to 4.3 percent from 4.7 percent) because of stronger-than-expected economic growth in 2023. That stronger growth pushed the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2023 below what CBO forecast last February. Although the unemployment rate is projected to rise in 2024 as the economy slows, it is expected to be lower, on average, than in CBO’s previous projections. After 2027, CBO’s projections of the unemployment rate are roughly the same as they were last February. </blockquote>
Not really what the “Party of Business” is trying to put over, as the GOP fear-mongers about immigration and tries to stir up stupid white people about something that is generally a net positive on our economy. And the CBO goes on to add that the US labor force participation rate is also projected to be higher than previously estimated in no small part due to immigration. </p>
That's not coming a moment too soon, because <a href=https://www.axios.com/2024/02/19/american-retirement-boom-high-stock-market-returns> a large number of Boomer-aged Americans are leaving the labor force, </a> as record highs in the stock market and a good economy allow for more people to be able to retire. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Huge numbers of Americans leaving workplace in a surprise second wave of post-COVID retirement boom, <a href="https://twitter.com/axios?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@axios</a> rpts: <a href="https://t.co/2ssCen2aqg">https://t.co/2ssCen2aqg</a></p>— Mark Albert (@malbertnews) <a href="https://twitter.com/malbertnews/status/1759994679829921965?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 20, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote> Huge numbers of Americans are leaving the workplace in a surprise second wave of the post-COVID retirement boom. </p>
Why it matters: An aging country — combined with a booming stock market and a nudge from return-to-office policies — means more working stiffs are preparing to exit the stage. </p>
What's happening: The U.S. has about 2.7 million more retirees than predicted, Bloomberg reports from a model designed by an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. </p>
That number was 1.5 million six months ago — a more than 80% increase. Before the pandemic, there were often fewer retirees than expected. </blockquote> As someone who’s got a 50th birthday looming this year, I can understand the sentiment of wanting to get out when you can. And if we have enough immigration to replace those workers, and economic growth to keep up demand for labor, I don’t see a downside to any of this. </p>
The CBO also indicates that the US budget deficit should decline from just under $1.7 trillion in Fiscal 2023 to just over $1.5 trillion in 2024. Most of this is due to a rebound in tax revenues after a significant drop in 2023.
<blockquote> Federal revenues in 2023 totaled $4.4 trillion. At 16.5 percent of GDP, revenues in that year were considerably lower than the 19.4 percent recorded in 2022, which was the highest percentage in more than 20 years. That decline was largely in collections of individual income taxes, which had reached an unprecedented high in 2022. Also contributing to the decline in 2023 were lower remittances from the Federal Reserve, which fell to near zero in that year as rising short-term interest rates pushed the agency’s expenses above its income. </p>
CBO expects total receipts to temporarily jump to 17.5 percent of GDP in 2024 as a result of the collection of certain postponed tax payments, before declining to 17.1 percent of GDP in 2025. Receipts are projected to subsequently rise to 17.9 percent by 2034, largely because of scheduled changes in tax provisions and because the Federal Reserve is anticipated to begin once again remitting significant amounts to the Treasury…. </p>
<strong> Individual income tax receipts declined sharply in relation to GDP last year—from 10.4 percent in 2022 to 8.1 percent in 2023. That reduction occurred in part because asset values and realizations of capital gains fell, and also because the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) postponed until 2024 certain tax payment deadlines for taxpayers in areas affected by natural disasters. (Otherwise, those payments would have been due in 2023.) CBO expects receipts to climb to 8.8 percent of GDP in 2024 as those delayed payments come in and fall to 8.6 percent of GDP in 2025 because no further delays are anticipated. </strong> Receipts then grow from 2025 to 2027 because scheduled changes in tax provisions, including an increase in most tax rates, are projected to drive up receipts in relation to taxable personal income. Real bracket creep....also contributes to rising receipts over time. </blockquote>
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Now, deficits are expected to generally rise from there under current law (with the exception of 2026, when the GOP Tax Scam expires), and annual deficits are projected to go back over $2 trillion in 2031. But the projected cumulative deficits over the next decade are $1.4 trillion lower than they were this time last year. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQSqKM2vQyh1gviajeeWQ9mmlglYPRdKuGjym4kUVlCESyArBB6SqctwFq3uRf_yKCnGZ5EXp8b0WCWzSJMH_8ej4nCOeyPNHsEu4lZERLS4bTOQ7skE788PkeKMQ2XYU3C5gjyWc5dkaZ7cqy5PTBeM2fvswrlDDP0UIWAFRnC1y5Briqd8vBTt-Kqs5m/s500/US%20budget%20deficits%20next%2010%20years.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="500" data-original-height="163" data-original-width="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQSqKM2vQyh1gviajeeWQ9mmlglYPRdKuGjym4kUVlCESyArBB6SqctwFq3uRf_yKCnGZ5EXp8b0WCWzSJMH_8ej4nCOeyPNHsEu4lZERLS4bTOQ7skE788PkeKMQ2XYU3C5gjyWc5dkaZ7cqy5PTBeM2fvswrlDDP0UIWAFRnC1y5Briqd8vBTt-Kqs5m/s500/US%20budget%20deficits%20next%2010%20years.png"/></a></div> </p>
My last point is that not only do things look a bit better than they did this time last year both fiscally and economically, but that our budget deficit really isn't an economic issue if our dollars stays strong and inflation stays below 3-4% annual rate (as it has for the last 18 months). And if you do think the budget deficit is something we should be concerned about, the solution of TAXING THE RICH BACK TO 1990s LEVELS solves a lot of that very quickly. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-43797378230771945062024-02-20T19:38:00.004-06:002024-02-20T19:46:49.441-06:00Sure enough, WisGOPs in the 715 ask for govt help in surviving this Winter. And only Dems answer them.
I had predicted last week that the warm winter was going to lead to calls to help out many businesses up North, as cold-weather tourism has been severely cut down this season. Sure enough, <a href=https://www.wispolitics.com/2024/northern-legislators-open-letter-encourage-gov-evers-to-declare-economic-injury-disaster/> several Northern Wisconsin Republicans made their request to Governor Evers (on Monday). </a> <blockquote> Dear Governor Evers, </p>
As members of the Legislature who represent portions of Northern Wisconsin, we’re respectfully asking you to work with the United States Small Business Administration to properly declare an economic injury disaster area for our areas of that state that are experiencing substantial economic injuries due to the lack of snow. </p>
During the winter months, our Northern Wisconsin economy relies primarily on the tourism industry. From restaurants to lodging, and everything in between, our constituents need snow to attract the tremendous influx of traffic that comes with the snowmobiling season. When people visit our neck of the woods in the winter time, they aren’t just renting snowmobiles and hitting the trails, they’re staying in our hotels, eating in our restaurants, buying from our stores, and keeping the dollars flowing throughout the season. The lack of snow this year has left a tremendous hardship on our small businesses, which has the potential to destroy our Northwoods economy. </p>
The United States Small Business Administration, upon the acceptance of a declared disaster area, can offer Economic Injury Disaster Loans to small businesses, small agriculture cooperatives, and most private nonprofit organizations. These loans provide the necessary working capital to help small businesses that are impacted by a disaster survive until normal operations resume. With generous terms and maturity options, these Economic Injury Disaster Loans could make or break our northern communities. </p>
We appreciate you taking this request into consideration. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions. </blockquote>
Within one day, <a href=https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/business/2024/02/20/businesses-hurt-by-lack-of-snow-may-apply-for-disaster-assistance/72670579007/> we got a response. </a>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Winter businesses may be eligible for disaster relief loans <a href="https://t.co/e1onQtupzq">https://t.co/e1onQtupzq</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/journalsentinel?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@journalsentinel</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/berkebeiner?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#berkebeiner</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wisconsinwinter?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#wisconsinwinter</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/winterbusinesses?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#winterbusinesses</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/winterdisasterassistance?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#winterdisasterassistance</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/sbadisasterrelief?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#sbadisasterrelief</a></p>— Rick Barrett (@rbarrettJS) <a href="https://twitter.com/rbarrettJS/status/1760012606914560029?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 20, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote> Tuesday, Gov. Tony Evers and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin said the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has confirmed the agency will consider business losses from the winter to be related to drought and eligible for assistance. </p>
Under the Economic Impact Disasters Loan program, businesses could borrow up to $2 million to cover their actual losses. They would pay no interest on the loans for the first year and a maximum rate of 4% for the rest of the loan period. </blockquote> That’ll at least allow a better chance for these businesses to make it to the Summer tourism season, which these businesses deserve when they’re damaged due to circumstances beyond their control. </p>
Two people I didn’t see asking for aid to Northern Wisconsin? Congressman Tom Tiffany, who “represents” most of the state north of Highway 29, and US Senator Ron Johnson. They’ve spent a lot of time on their social media going on about immigration that’s happening 2,000 miles away from Wisconsin (without any solutions, by the way), but have said <strong> nothing </strong> about the weather-related economic damage that has hit their constituents. Priorities, you know. </p>
I have yet to see the state’s sales tax receipts for January to see if the lack of winter tourism is having an unforeseen impact on the state’s budget, and we won’t see similar effects in the county sales tax distributions until March (it’s usually a 2-month lag). But given that temps are expected to get even warmer in the next week, it sure seems likely that it is a bust in a key sector of Wisconsin’s economy for late 2023 and early 2024. I just hope that the SBA aid and related measures are able to stop the bleeding and make sure any damage is temporary without significant losses in either jobs or tax revenue. </p>
I was guessing that the WisGOP legislators from up North wouldn't even mention that their constituents are getting help largely due to the quick work of Democrats like Tony Evers and Tammy Baldwin. But to their (minor) credit, they did mention both of them <a href=https://www.wispolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2024-02-20-Northern-Legislators-Announce-Federal-Loan-Availability-for-Small-Businesses.pdf> in their release today.....along with some whining about Marinette and Forest Counties not being in the disaster declaration. </a></p>
But you'll notice that what those state Republicans won't mention is how WisGOPs in Washington said and did nothing while those in the 715 had to deal with this historic and damaging winter season, and that it's only Dems that stepped up to use real resources to fill the void. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-72706192974736005102024-02-19T19:13:00.005-06:002024-02-19T19:38:23.284-06:00Tony signs the maps. A good thing in a normal world, but lots of work left.Sure Tony. Go ahead and play it straight instead of listening to me. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">BREAKING: I've promised from the beginning that I will always try to do the right thing. Today, I'm keeping that promise and I'm signing fair maps for Wisconsin. <br><br>Wisconsin, for the first time in over a decade, we will not have some of the most gerrymandered maps in America. <a href="https://t.co/jc5RUGY0mM">pic.twitter.com/jc5RUGY0mM</a></p>— Governor Tony Evers (@GovEvers) <a href="https://twitter.com/GovEvers/status/1759595885850145272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 19, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Scene in the governor’s conference room in the state Capitol ahead of Gov. Tony Evers taking action on new legislative maps that will give Democrats a chance to gain more seats in the Legislature for the first time in more than a decade. <a href="https://t.co/eWmuMmyhL8">pic.twitter.com/eWmuMmyhL8</a></p>— Molly Beck (@MollyBeck) <a href="https://twitter.com/MollyBeck/status/1759595194368893382?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 19, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
I put nothing past GOP scum to try to delay this past November's elections, but I am a bit heartened to read this sighing admission from the dbag most likely to try to pull such a stunt. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Rick Esenberg of WILL, on Wisconsin's new electoral maps: Republicans "were obviously terrified of what the court would do and were trying to cut their losses."<br><br>More analysis of this momentous day by <a href="https://twitter.com/MollyBeck?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MollyBeck</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/jessieopie?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jessieopie</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/evawen_WQH?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@evawen_WQH</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/ndrewhahn?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ndrewhahn</a>:<a href="https://t.co/0WxuQWepp0">https://t.co/0WxuQWepp0</a></p>— Journal Sentinel Investigations (@js_watchdog) <a href="https://twitter.com/js_watchdog/status/1759710738241761676?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 19, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
We'll see if that's truly the calculation the WisGOPs have made, and that these are the Legislative maps we will have in place for the next 8 years. Let's then take a look and see what we got. </p>
First thing to note is that despite any whining Republicans may make, this map does not advantage Democrats. For example, even though Joe Biden won Wisconsin by 0.6%, Donald Trump won a majority of State Assembly districts under these maps in the 2020 election. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Evers had proposed these maps to Wisconsin's Supreme Court after it struck down the GOP's maps.<br><br>They're slightly more GOP-friendly than 3 other proposals, which may be why GOP legislators passed them, but they're still much fairer than their gerrymanders <a href="https://t.co/Lb7V48v5XN">https://t.co/Lb7V48v5XN</a> <a href="https://t.co/T7N96X9rAV">https://t.co/T7N96X9rAV</a></p>— Stephen Wolf @stephenwolf.bsky.social (@PoliticsWolf) <a href="https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1759599562258309376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 19, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
I'll note that the Highway 41 corridor between Green Bay, Appleton and Oshkosh is now the home of 2 close-but-Dem leaning Senate seats currently held by Republicans, and 3 Dem-leaning Assembly seats that are currently held by GOPs. So what's already an big swingy/battleground area in statewide elections is now going to be that way for legislative races as well this November. </p>
I also wanted to take a look at results of the 2022 elections on these maps, to get an idea of what this may look like in the post-Dobbs world in Wisconsin (a state where the abortion issue and January 6th events are VERY relevant). And I wanted to go with the lower-profile Attorney General's race (which Dem Josh Kaul won by 1.3%), to have a picture of "generic D vs R" at the state level in these districts. </p>
It's pretty much the same story as the Presidential breakdown, except that Dems would have 1-seat advantages in both houses under the AG results - 50-49 in the Assembly, and 17-16 in the Senate. Here's a look at where control flips, and the number of competitive seats that had an AG election result decided by less than 10 points.</p>
First the Assembly. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkgmyg6YScXjMvjWJup-KXyh5-9o38jjvCS4_pKhO2IQlo2RUUT3HIv-XMCFIM0jp0FAAH6dGw6EQRoQiu9HULSqs83djfcG_gQhVU7pu-uZYSglfR3ny8puNEdDJPpuaiZhBxdy5fyIH0BbY3J3dm_RJRmDdN7l3xOXXLW-EXgG1eCJmYt_pY_7WeioK2/s480/Wis%20Redistrict%20-%20Evers%20maps%20competitive%20Assembly%20.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="628" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkgmyg6YScXjMvjWJup-KXyh5-9o38jjvCS4_pKhO2IQlo2RUUT3HIv-XMCFIM0jp0FAAH6dGw6EQRoQiu9HULSqs83djfcG_gQhVU7pu-uZYSglfR3ny8puNEdDJPpuaiZhBxdy5fyIH0BbY3J3dm_RJRmDdN7l3xOXXLW-EXgG1eCJmYt_pY_7WeioK2/s480/Wis%20Redistrict%20-%20Evers%20maps%20competitive%20Assembly%20.png"/></a></div> </p>
Now the Senate. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmDmTtP6I35B9cXnXaiX4izOktxpN8jMTQiCF8MI295IT3rnOsiOKNP1qXMVgc82KaGxx-7xwx6EbXrHny-NnB5Ot0HMlrJkRsHTnFI4mJNfkJf2rH9YRezrJu8OXWRrqbrD08wcgg_iIXcSL0TdAeaB2QNnV0r1kEoAKpVS8aBChPcbdrWY9IyAcH6QBk/s480/Wis%20Redistrict%20-%20Evers%20maps%20competitive%20Senate.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="166" data-original-width="617" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmDmTtP6I35B9cXnXaiX4izOktxpN8jMTQiCF8MI295IT3rnOsiOKNP1qXMVgc82KaGxx-7xwx6EbXrHny-NnB5Ot0HMlrJkRsHTnFI4mJNfkJf2rH9YRezrJu8OXWRrqbrD08wcgg_iIXcSL0TdAeaB2QNnV0r1kEoAKpVS8aBChPcbdrWY9IyAcH6QBk/s480/Wis%20Redistrict%20-%20Evers%20maps%20competitive%20Senate.png"/></a></div> </p>
But it's not all great news for Dems. You'll notice a lot more Dem-leaning seats are close to 50% than GOP-leaning seats. So if you hear Robbin' Vos and other Republicans whining about "Democrat[ic] maps", they're DEAD WRONG, and it shows how absurdly huge their sense of privilege has gotten under in their 13 years of gerrymandered power. </p>
It's even dumber to hear complaints from Republicans because there still is practically no way that Dems can have complete control of state government after November 2024, even with these new maps. That's because only half of the State Senate is up for re-election in 2024, and Dems would have to pick up 6 currently GOP-held seats in November to undo the 22-11 GOP supermajority. To get that far, Dems would have to win a seat that voted GOP in the 2022 Attorney General's race by more than 17%. </p>
But all 99 seats in the Assembly are up in 8 1/2 months, and that certainly will be up takeable for Dems under these fairer maps. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has <a href=https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2024/02/19/interactive-explore-wisconsins-new-electoral-maps/72664708007/> a neat group of graphics which compares the old and new districts, and how those districts have voted. </a> </p>
Assuming this holds, it's a great step forward for Wisconsin, which will likely have a Legislature that becomes more responsive to the wishes of the state's voters. Maybe we can now stop being out of step with Midwestern states like Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois, which all have some form of legal marijuana and <em> Roe v. Wade </em> protections, and Medicaid expansion. </p>
But I've also learned over the last 13 years not to be too comfortable, as WisGOP will try to retain power and go around the people's wishes by any means necessary. One of the things we've had to learn the hard way is that we need to be constantly vigilant against these scumbags, and if any front for WisGOP and their puppetmasters tries to use the Courts to overturn something that still gives a 50-50 chance for total GOP control of the State Legislature, their funders need to be exposed and damaged. </p>
I'll take the win today, but lots of work still left to do. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-13966856309364513832024-02-18T12:36:00.002-06:002024-02-18T12:50:00.017-06:00Decision week on new Wis maps. My thought? Evers should veto and let Wis Supreme Court decide I usually don't care what 60 Minutes has to say, but this could prove quite interesting to check in on tonight. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Wisconsin fake elector tells ‘60 Minutes’ he was afraid of Trump supporters <a href="https://t.co/Vi7XzECH7G">https://t.co/Vi7XzECH7G</a></p>— Molly Beck (@MollyBeck) <a href="https://twitter.com/MollyBeck/status/1758537877821002187?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 16, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote> Andrew Hitt, who was chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin during the 2020 election, offered the explanation for his participation in a scheme designed by Trump and his allies to stay in power after losing reelection during an episode of CBS' "60 Minutes" that will air Sunday evening. </p>
In a clip provided to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel by "60 Minutes," Hitt says he was scared of what Trump supporters would do to him or his family if he did not sign the paperwork and courts later overturned President Joe Biden's victory in Wisconsin. </p>
"... If I didn't do that, and the court did throw out those votes, it would have been solely my fault that Trump wouldn't have won Wisconsin," Hitt told "60 Minutes" correspondent Anderson Cooper. "Can you imagine the repercussions on myself, my family if it was me, Andrew Hitt, who prevented Donald Trump from winning Wisconsin?" </p>
But by the time Hitt and nine other Republicans met in the state Capitol to sign the paperwork claiming to be electors for Trump, the state Supreme Court had already confirmed Biden's win and federal judges had tossed lawsuits seeking to overturn Trump's loss. An appeal of one of the federal rulings was filed the morning of the day the Republicans met in the state Capitol to sign the false paperwork but the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago later upheld the decision to toss Trump's lawsuit, according to federal court records. An appeal of that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court was later rejected by the justices in March 2021. </blockquote> Pathetic. Both from the MAGAts making threats, and for WisGOP party hacks like Hitt who went along with them, because they need the support of MAGAts to win almost any Republican primary, and likely to win general elections, because they've lost most moderate voters with their garbage positions on issues. </p>
Wanna know what Andrew Hitt's job was before he became head of the Wisconsin GOP? In addition to a lot of regular "GOP hack" stuff under Scott Walker, he took a nice private sector gig to cash in from his time in Walker's Administration. <blockquote> The Appleton attorney was senior counsel at Michael Best & Friedrich and the chief operating officer at Michael Best Strategies when he was elected to serve as RPW chairman [in 2019]. </blockquote> "Michael Best & Friedrich". Where do I know that name? Oh yeah! <a href=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/magazine/the-new-front-in-the-gerrymandering-wars-democracy-vs-math.html> From stories like this one. </a> <blockquote> In the late spring of 2011, Dale Schultz walked the short blockin Madison from his State Senate office in the Wisconsin Capitol to the glass-paneled building of Michael Best & Friedrich, a law firm with deep ties to his Republican Party. First elected in 1982, Schultz placed himself within the progressive tradition that made Wisconsin, a century ago, the birthplace of the state income tax and laws that guarantee compensation for injured workers. In the months before his visit to Michael Best, Schultz cast the lone Republican vote against a bill that stripped collective-bargaining rights from most public employees. But if Schultz had doubts about some of his party’s priorities, he welcomed its ascendance to power. For the first time in his career, Republicans controlled the State Senate and the State Assembly as well as the governor’s office, giving them total sway over the redistricting process that follows the census taken at the beginning of each decade. ‘‘The way I saw it, reapportionment is a moment of opportunity for the ruling party,’’ Schultz told me this summer. </p>
Inside the law firm’s doors, Schultz took the elevator to what party aides called the ‘‘>map room.’’ They asked him to sign a nondisclosure agreement, which he did without complaint. Schultz sat down and was given a map with the new lines for his rural district west of Madison. He and his wife, a former school superintendent, own a 210-acre farm in the area, where they grow corn and beans and hunt pheasants. Schultz noticed that the newly drawn district mostly included precincts he’d won before. ‘‘I took one look at the map and saw that if I chose to run for re-election I could win, no trouble,’’ Schultz remembered. ‘‘That was it.’’ </p>
Nearly all of the 79 Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate and Assembly made a similar trip to the map room, signing the same secrecy pledge to see the new shape of their districts. The new maps efficiently concentrated many Democratic voters in a relatively small number of urban districts and spread out the remainder among many districts in the rest of the state. These are the twin techniques of gerrymandering, often called packing and cracking, which distribute voters to benefit the party that is drawing the district lines. </p>
‘‘So glad we are in control!’’ one state senator [Leah Vukmir] wrote in an email to a key Republican aide after her visit. No Democrat was invited to Michael Best & Friedrich, though the Republican leadership paid $400,000 in legal fees on behalf of the Legislature as a whole. In July, the statewide maps were unveiled at a single public hearing. </blockquote> Lowlifes. And when this was revealed, <a href=https://madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/costs-number-of-deleted-files-pile-up-in-redistricting-case/article_51f15cb1-eb07-51f9-893d-67e8e6ec68c3.html> GOP staffers deleted records to try to avoid further legal issues. </a> </p>
And that bridges us over into the big question that'll be answered this week - will Governor Evers sign the maps that the still-gerrymandered WisGOP Legislature passed, using maps Evers submitted to the Wisconsin Supreme Court as part of the lawsuit that struck down the GOP's gerrymander? </p>
It really comes down to whether you trust the GOP is conceding the best of a losing situation, and am taking the maps Evers submitted as a way of preventing the Supreme Court of Wisconsin from imposing a less favorable map, or if you think this is a trick. The way GOPs are whining about things, they're acting like they're in reluctant acceptance of the new maps. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Amazing comment about a set of maps that expert consultants found to almost all have a "modest Republican leaning partisan bias.” <a href="https://t.co/Z9zrii87y7">https://t.co/Z9zrii87y7</a></p>— Dan Shafer (@DanRShafer) <a href="https://twitter.com/DanRShafer/status/1757493757312647240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 13, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
And this was a column from the Wisconsin Examiner's editor-in-chief that made me more accepting of things should Evers sign these new maps into law.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Should <a href="https://twitter.com/GovEvers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GovEvers</a> sign or veto his own voting maps passed by the Legislature? Dems understandably distrust Vos and want to wait for the Supreme Court to decide, but experts say signing them will be harder to undo than a court-imposed map <a href="https://t.co/uLbJiktbFQ">https://t.co/uLbJiktbFQ</a></p>— ruth conniff (@rconniff) <a href="https://twitter.com/rconniff/status/1758630408202150252?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 16, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote> No matter what, Republicans will keep fighting to hold onto power. But the experts I spoke with (not including Elias, who didn’t respond to my requests for comment) agreed that Republicans don’t have a better shot at actually blocking change if Evers signs the maps. Instead, I heard a lot of forceful arguments that a court-imposed map is more vulnerable to challenge and repeal. </p>
While Evers’ maps have been carefully vetted to comply with the Voting Rights Act, no one knows what the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court would make of the conflict of interest claim Republicans and their allies have lobbed at Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz who, they say, should not be involved in redistricting because of the financial support she received from the Democratic Party, which has a keen interest in the maps. </p>
And, as one lawyer told me, while Diane Sykes is very conservative, that doesn’t mean she would be willing to carry water for the Republicans in a Voting Rights Act case that has no merit. In general, courts are less likely to want to overturn a map that’s been ratified by two branches of government than one that, in a novel process, was created by the state Supreme Court. </p>
There is also the short-term question of when the maps will go into effect. The bill passed by the Legislature delays their implementation until after a special election to replace Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) and a primary challenge to Vos himself. Democrats in the Legislature leapt on that delay (along with a rushed process and lack of public hearings) as one more reason for distrust. </p>
But there is a pretty clear path to undo the delay. Since the Court has declared the current maps unconstitutional, the Wisconsin Elections Commission will likely seek guidance and the same justices are likely to rule that the new maps must go into effect immediately. </blockquote> On the flip side, given what we've seen from these guys in the last 14 years, and knowing the dirty dark money from GOP oligarchs that backs them up, why would I NOT think it was a trick, and that there is some GOP scumbag ready to sue in Federal Court in the hope that some GOP "Justice" would at least stall the new maps past November 2024, keeping the gerrymander in place for one more election cycle, and stymieing Governor Evers for the last 2 years of his 2nd term? </p>
That's certainly what the head lawyer for Milwaukee County says that is what she has heard. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Whoa! Just heard <a href="https://twitter.com/MaggieDaunShow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MaggieDaunShow</a> say she has “inside information” that WisGOP is trying to trick <a href="https://twitter.com/GovEvers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GovEvers</a> into signing maps, then a <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wiright?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#wiright</a> stooge sues to delay the maps past Nov 2024.<br><br>It adds up. VETO this Tony, and wait for SCOWIS to fix the maps. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/gerrymandering?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#gerrymandering</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wiunion?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#wiunion</a></p>— JakeEdwards (@JakeMadtown) <a href="https://twitter.com/JakeMadtown/status/1757915681847455961?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
I also could see some ratf*ck put in place where a RW hack says "Evers signed these old maps to be in place through November, why would we have two different maps signed into law within the 10-year redistricting period?" </p>
Literally, this argument would mean that both the Legislature and Evers would be doing something illegal (or at least put on hold to figure out if it was legal), and as stupid as that sounds in the real world, do we feel 100% comfortable with that being laughed out of court in time for the new maps to be in place this November. If there is a veto, the Wisconsin Supreme Court will determine the best course of action in the next 4 weeks, and why would we want to pre-empt that after all of this time and effort? </p>
That's why I still lean toward Evers vetoing these maps, and Tony could claim it's "too little, too late". I get either choice Evers would make, but I'd argue the downside of vetoing, and dealing with Republi-dweebs going "neeneer, neeneer, neeneer" is smaller than having some GOP stooge try to hold up new maps for another two years in Federal court on some cockamamie argument. Guess we'll find out soon enough, and if the voters of this state will finally get a fair shake to choose their legislators. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-82336558131670802342024-02-16T17:46:00.006-06:002024-02-16T17:52:08.756-06:00Wall Streeters, media return to INFLATION WATCH. But 0.3% ain't much, and one-time factors misleadOh no! It's a high print for producer prices! </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">January wholesale prices rise more than expected, another sign of persistent inflation <a href="https://t.co/vC0Ucmie2A">https://t.co/vC0Ucmie2A</a></p>— CNBC (@CNBC) <a href="https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/1758488130682826831?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 16, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote> Wholesale prices rose more than expected in January, further complicating the inflation picture, according to a U.S. Department of Labor report Friday. </p>
The producer price index, a measure of prices received by producers of domestic goods and services, rose 0.3% for the month, the biggest move since August. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for an increase of just 0.1%. PPI fell 0.2% in December. </p>
Excluding food and energy, core PPI increased 0.5%, also against expectations for a 0.1% gain. PPI excluding food, energy and trade services jumped 0.6%, its biggest one-month advance since January 2023. </p>
The report comes just days after the consumer price index showed inflation holding stubbornly higher despite Federal Reserve expectations for moderation through the year. The CPI was up 3.1% from a year ago, down from its December level but still well ahead of the Fed’s goal for 2% inflation. </blockquote>
<a href=https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ppi.pdf> But when I went into the actual report, </a> it made me think these inflation concerns are overblown. To start with, goods prices for businesses went down in January. <blockquote> The index for final demand goods moved down 0.2 percent in January, the fourth consecutive decline. Most of the January decrease is attributable to a 1.7-percent drop in prices for final demand energy. The index for final demand foods fell 0.3 percent. Conversely, prices for final demand goods less foods and energy increased 0.3 percent. </blockquote> Food and gas both went down in PPI for January? Seems like a good spot to me. </p>
What caused the increase in the PPI was a 0.6% jump in the price of services. <blockquote> A 2.2-percent increase in the index for hospital outpatient care was a major factor in the January rise in prices for final demand services. The indexes for chemicals and allied products wholesaling, machinery and equipment wholesaling, portfolio management, traveler accommodation services, and legal services also moved higher. In contrast, prices for long-distance motor carrying decreased 1.0 percent. The indexes for computer hardware, software, and supplies retailing and for engineering services also moved lower. </blockquote> And no surprise that we might see big jumps in some of these things in January, because it’s when many people put in their new fee structures, and try to cash in for 2024. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">GOLDMAN: “Start-of-year price increases likely drove the strength in medical categories .. we also assume a return to more normal sequential readings for the financial services .. we estimate that the core <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PCE?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PCE</a> price index rose 0.43% in January (vs. 0.35% previously).” <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PPI?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PPI</a> <a href="https://t.co/yWJpfujTL8">pic.twitter.com/yWJpfujTL8</a></p>— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) <a href="https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/1758511481488810474?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 16, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">BREAN: “.. Core final demand <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PPI?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PPI</a> prices picked up in January, as they have in January in each of the last four years, which suggests an inadequate seasonal factor for the start of the year might be at work.” <a href="https://t.co/H6wC5aNl87">pic.twitter.com/H6wC5aNl87</a></p>— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) <a href="https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/1758517415887933856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 16, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
It’s a similar story at the PPI step before final demand – processed goods down 0.2%, unprocessed goods up only 0.1%, but services up 0.5%. And I’ll add that the PPI report indicates tougher times for food distributors and farmers, as the prices they're receiving are often going down. <blockquote> Leading the decline in prices for processed goods for intermediate demand, the index for electric power fell 2.1 percent. Prices for basic organic chemicals, gasoline, meats, prepared animal feeds, and lubricating oil base stocks also moved lower. In contrast, the index for inedible fats and oils jumped 23.3 percent. Prices for utility natural gas and for cold rolled steel sheet and strip also increased…. </p>
Leading the rise in prices for unprocessed goods for intermediate demand in January, the index for crude petroleum advanced 6.1 percent. Prices for slaughter steers and heifers; construction sand, gravel, and crushed stone; slaughter turkeys; and unprocessed finfish also increased. In contrast, the index for corn declined 6.5 percent. Prices for hay, hayseeds, and oilseeds; iron and steel scrap; and natural gas also moved lower. </blockquote> Put this together, and it looks like price hikes that consumers may deal with in early 2024 would be the result of greedflation. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">PPI inflation (generally, the prices firms* pay for goods & services before selling) peaked long ago<br><br>It's plunged to 0.9% on a yearly basis<br><br>many corporate pricing teams are eating up 🍽️ that sweet spread between falling/flattening input costs & higher prices still being charged <a href="https://t.co/KX2F7vqEJF">https://t.co/KX2F7vqEJF</a> <a href="https://t.co/AWcrnPsgIH">pic.twitter.com/AWcrnPsgIH</a></p>— talmon joseph smith (@talmonsmith) <a href="https://twitter.com/talmonsmith/status/1758493695605698605?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 16, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
The only concern I have in this PPI report is that increase in crude oil prices, <a href=https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/16/crude-oil-today.html> which has continued in the trading markets in February. </a> That’s something which seems like to be reflected in the February CPI, even if it has little to do with actual supply-and-demand situations, and you can bet the “experts” will overreact if higher gas prices in February keep CPI above 0.2% for the month. </p>
And lastly, I will once again ask “What’s wrong with 3% inflation anyway?” In 16 out of the 19 months between March 1983 and October 1984, the CPI rose by at least 0.3%, with 12-month inflation being up more than 4% for all of 1984. And unemployment was between 7% and 8% for all of that same year. Know what the economic message of the old first-term president running for re-election was back then? </p>
<iframe width="480" height="288" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fa8Qupc4PnQ" title="Ronald Reagan It's Morning In America 1984" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe> </P>
Guess it's not where you are, but the direction you're perceived to be going, eh? </p>
Now throw in all of Bill Clinton’s first term, from January 1993 through the end of 1996, with the 12-month CPI increasing between 2.5% and 3.4% for that entire time period. We also had more than 11 million new jobs, and things worked out well for that Dem in his re-election campaign. </p>
<iframe width="480" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yfpgKTZvtBM" title="President Clinton at '96 Victory Celebration (1996)" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe> </p>
So why should 0.3% increases in both CPI and PPI be such a concern in January 2024? And why should it be considered a drag on the current old guy running for re-election when more than 15 million jobs have been added in his term so far, and unemployment has stayed below 4% for more than a year? This is especially true when much of the CPI increase is due to <a href=https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-does-the-consumer-price-index-account-for-the-cost-of-housing/> a rental measure that will decline over the next 6 months, </a> and when much of PPI’s increase is also due to one-time reasons. </p>
Makes no sense, but Wall Streeters and Central Bankers seem to be the last people who think real wage growth and job growth among everyday Americans are a bad thing, if their costs go up by another 1%. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-75787506656532867652024-02-15T17:18:00.004-06:002024-02-15T17:22:49.655-06:00Slow retail sales, manufacturing makes Wall Street smile. After all of last week’s panic over inflation coming in 0.1% above “expert expectations” (something I find to be an absurd overreaction), we got a report today that makes me have a more legitimate concern. And that’s the indication that <a href=https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/15/economy/us-retail-sales-january/index.html> American consumers didn’t spend as much to start 2024. </a> <blockquote> Spending at US retailers tumbled much more than expected in January as cold weather across the United States kept shoppers at home after a robust holiday spending season. </p>
Retail sales, which captures spending on all goods and food services, fell 0.8% in January, the Commerce Department reported Thursday, breaking a two-month streak of increases. That was even lower than the downwardly revised 0.4% increase in December, and well below economists’ expectations of a 0.1% decline, according to FactSet. The figures are adjusted for seasonal swings but not inflation. </p>
Spending declined across various categories last month, including at gas stations and home improvement stores, likely due to the cold weather, falling 1.7% and 4.1%, respectively. Online sales contracted 0.8%. </blockquote> That’s going to be the key question is this report – was spending held back due to the one brutal stretch of cold we’ve seen this winter? Or is it a sign that Americans are saving more and waiting to see how things develop in what will likely be a tense year for many? </p>
In looking at the individual numbers, I will note that Americans did keep spending at both grocery stores (up 0.6%) and bars and restaurants (+0.7%). And a 0.8% decline from the online-driven Non-Store Retailers came the month after a 1.4% increase in December, so that could just be a post-Holiday breather. </p>
However, another economic report that hit today didn’t help. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Frigid weather depresses US manufacturing output in January <a href="https://t.co/PEEyBOLM9M">https://t.co/PEEyBOLM9M</a> <a href="https://t.co/cXShIF71wx">pic.twitter.com/cXShIF71wx</a></p>— Reuters (@Reuters) <a href="https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1758187004091678812?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 15, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote> Production at U.S. factories unexpectedly fell in January, weighed down by harsh winter weather. </p>
Manufacturing output dropped 0.5% last month after an unrevised 0.1% gain the prior month, the Federal Reserve said on Thursday. The Fed attributed the decline to "winter weather." </p>
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast factory output would be unchanged. Production at factories fell 0.9% on a year-on-year basis in January. </blockquote> Not great there either, and it makes February’s data all the more key to make sure we’re staying on an overall growth track. </p>
Naturally, Wall Street loved this news. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dow ends up nearly 350 points as stocks claw back losses from earlier this week <a href="https://t.co/0RyNyIQEm6">https://t.co/0RyNyIQEm6</a></p>— MarketWatch (@MarketWatch) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarketWatch/status/1758237639575027787?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 15, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote> U.S. stock indexes finished higher on Thursday as Wall Street attempted to recover from a steep selloff earlier this week, with January's retail-sales report — which dropped more than forecast — bolstering hopes that the Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates in the coming months. </blockquote> It's amazing how these people overreacted to an inflation rate that is still running around a 2% annual rate over the last 4 months. Things are no different than they were a couple of weeks ago on the inflation front (as in “it’s not causing economic problems”), and our real emphasis should be to keep up consumer and business demand. </p>
The demand part is being endangered by the combination of higher interest rates and higher amounts of debt, and you would hope the Central Bankers at the Fed recognize this reality, and start to give some relief to borrowers while lowering the cost of mortgages and increasing movement in that sector. With <a href=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/layoffs-economy-2024-why-are-job-cuts-happening/> several corporations announcing profit-hoarding layoffs in early 2024, </a> chasing a long-dead inflation ghost might be the one way these annoyances in a growing economy become serious headwinds that make recession a possibility. </p>
And oh yeah, don’t forget that <a href=https://www.npr.org/2019/07/31/734060292/fed-cuts-interest-rates-for-1st-time-since-2008> the Fed cut rates from 2-2.25% in 2019 at the demands of President Trump </a> when the economy wasn’t much different vs where it is today. So you would hope they’d do the same when the Fed Funds rates are 3% higher than that in 2024. It’s only fair, unless they’re rooting for Trump in November, and why would they want that? Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-24753021765045203292024-02-13T19:33:00.001-06:002024-02-13T19:33:26.891-06:00Is INFLATION WATCH now back? NO! Things are still under control, like they've been for months. I said in late 2023 that it’s become about time to cancel INFLATION WATCH, but we still should take a look at what the monthly CPI reports are saying. The report for January came out today, <a href= https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/13/cpi-inflation-january-2024-consumer-prices-rose-0point3percent-in-january-more-than-expected-as-the-annual-rate-moved-to-3point1percent.html> and so let’s give it a gander. </a>
<blockquote> The consumer price index, a broad-based measure of the prices shoppers face for goods and services across the economy, increased 0.3% for the month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. On a 12-month basis, that came out to 3.1%, down from 3.4% in December. </blockquote> Oh great, inflation is still muted. Wait, what’s that squawking I hear in the background. <blockquote> Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a monthly increase of 0.2% and an annual gain of 2.9%. </p>
Excluding volatile food and energy prices, the so-called core CPI accelerated 0.4% in January and was up 3.9% from a year ago, unchanged from December. The forecast had been for 0.3% and 3.7%, respectively. </blockquote> It was that forecast by the “experts” that caused this new report to alarm Wall Streeters, leading to a selloff from what has been a multi-month rally largely based on the belief that inflation was done as an economic concern. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dow tumbles 500 points, posts worst day since March 2023 after hot inflation report: Live updates <a href="https://t.co/6Y0ECMvty0">https://t.co/6Y0ECMvty0</a></p>— CNBC (@CNBC) <a href="https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/1757512269271855199?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 13, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote> The Dow Jones Industrial Averag lost 524.63 points, or 1.35%, for its worst session since March 2023 on a percentage basis. It had earlier in the afternoon sunk more than 700 points, or 1.8%. The S&P 500 slid 1.37%, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.8%....</p>
“This may well come as a easy excuse to take some of the froth out of the top of this market that’s been universally higher thus far this year,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Financial. “The CPI was, as reported today, just a touch hotter than expectations and proof positive that we’re not on a linear path, but we’re on a path headed lower.” </blockquote> And I’d agree with Mr. Hogan on two fronts. Some of today’s selloff could be simple profit-taking after the S&P rose by more than 22% in just over 3 months in no small part due to interest-rate speculation. And I agree with Hogan’s point about staying in the right direction, as this paragraph from the CNBC rundown of the CPI report indicates that the higher inflation number comes largely from one sector as opposed to being system-wide. <blockquote> Shelter prices, which comprise about one-third of the CPI weighting, accounted for much of the rise. The index for that category climbed 0.6% on the month, contributing more than two-thirds of the headline increase, the BLS said. On a 12-month basis, shelter rose 6%. </blockquote> If you take out the shelter part of the CPI report, prices have only gone up by 1.5% in the last 12 months. And there also are a whole lot of homeowners like my wife and I that have fixed-rate 3% mortgages, and aren’t that affected by the higher shelter prices. </p>
I know some might find that comment insensitive. I understand that higher shelter prices cause real economic pain for renters, and it’s one of the few legitimate drags on our economy these days. But isn’t that all the more reason to <em> not </em> be as concerned by this January CPI report, because in most areas of our lives, inflation is only running around 2-3%? </p>
And if reports of rent prices leveling off are true, we’ll see that shelter number level off in the near future, as that stat notoriously lags reality. <a href=https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-does-the-consumer-price-index-account-for-the-cost-of-housing/> The Brookings Institute had a good rundown of this situation in a recent blog post. </a> <blockquote> This lag occurs for a few reasons. First, the market indices capture rents of units currently on the market, not rents for units occupied by continuing renters, like the CPI does. Rents change when leases expire, which typically happens annually. In addition, landlords may be less likely to raise rents to market prices for continuing tenants, and so it might take even longer for rents on all units to catch up with rents charged to new tenants. Second, because the BLS only examines rents every six months, it can’t know exactly when the rent changed. The BLS assumes that the rent increased gradually over the six months, meaning that only about one-sixth of the total observed increase in rent is attributed to the month the unit is sampled.1 For example, if the BLS observed that rent increased from $2,000 per month in January 2022 to $2,400 per month in July 2022—a 20% increase—it would assume that the increase in rent in July 2022 for that unit was 3%, roughly one-sixth of 20%. That means that an unusual increase in rents will only fully show through with a lag in the CPI. </p>
In late 2022, researchers at the BLS and Cleveland Fed introduced an experimental quarterly index of new tenant rent (New Tenant Rent Index) using a very similar method to the Zillow index and data from the CPI Housing Survey. This index tracks market rents by only using observations in the CPI dataset that follow a change in tenant. The New Tenant Rent Index accounts for changes in the price of utilities, depreciation, and remodeling between tenants. Like the Zillow and CoreLogic indices, the New Tenant Rent Index will likely be a leading indicator for the shelter component of CPI. </p>
Indicators of market rents, including Zillow, CoreLogic, and the New Tenant Rent Index, show that rent inflation for new tenants is at or below pre-pandemic levels, while CPI rent inflation remains elevated. This suggests that CPI rent inflation will decline over 2024 or 2025. </blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5O7dkLWJHWGmRh5pr7T1NAUTCGE3UBIEACqcXjn-gJ9FERA7jhkU6HWSeu45DuVIwbZx6UdK2Avya-ve-yVqDERNGwWSd_3Em-ezArAKIJJuFNkWPlRKCRTZst1kJzFBDm4MdLwB-Er4FbsafjZZnVb3PdmzFCIqOCLS0yItEFzEIUAJ1gM0GrxiLk5iD/s480/CPI%20rent%20vs%20other%20measures%20of%20rent.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="872" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5O7dkLWJHWGmRh5pr7T1NAUTCGE3UBIEACqcXjn-gJ9FERA7jhkU6HWSeu45DuVIwbZx6UdK2Avya-ve-yVqDERNGwWSd_3Em-ezArAKIJJuFNkWPlRKCRTZst1kJzFBDm4MdLwB-Er4FbsafjZZnVb3PdmzFCIqOCLS0yItEFzEIUAJ1gM0GrxiLk5iD/s480/CPI%20rent%20vs%20other%20measures%20of%20rent.png"/></a></div> </p>
Ironically, we just got an inflation update 4 days ago that calmed a lot of Wall Streeter nerves, as it showed that the change in CPI for 2023 was….basically no different than we thought it was. <blockquote> U.S. monthly consumer prices rose less than initially thought in December, but the overall inflation revisions were mixed, and did not shift expectations on the timing of an anticipated interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve this year. </p>
The annual revisions published by the Labor Department on Friday also showed the consumer price index increasing slightly more than previously reported in October and November. </p>
Prices excluding the volatile food and energy components were unrevised, after rounding, from October through December. All told, the revisions did not materially alter the path of inflation, which is moderating after surging in 2022. …</p>
"The revisions were much ado about nothing," said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. "This is becoming a trend where a Fed official mentions a data release once and then everyone waits with bated breath only to find out that it's a bunch of noise." </blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8xu9RBk8HqnLO7aNOZgEmy2wlythpTWvnbYzfaNqRBfTINmmdz4I4Wd0_vFu8BraTjJttc-bmwFrbUQrZL8Kmr8n5N1Ty4rgzID0lyG8OrJD3kPmCsZwj1WSlTJ2q4x6lbqcI7ils9fiei9sKCs04rlbSGtEfxw3Endxchi78-sRGsUkRArrlbGJ43XiR/s480/image002.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="294" data-original-width="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8xu9RBk8HqnLO7aNOZgEmy2wlythpTWvnbYzfaNqRBfTINmmdz4I4Wd0_vFu8BraTjJttc-bmwFrbUQrZL8Kmr8n5N1Ty4rgzID0lyG8OrJD3kPmCsZwj1WSlTJ2q4x6lbqcI7ils9fiei9sKCs04rlbSGtEfxw3Endxchi78-sRGsUkRArrlbGJ43XiR/s480/image002.png"/></a></div> </p>
So if we start to see shelter drop in the next few CPI reports, and core CPI go down to 2-3%, why would the Federal Reserve keep its Fed Funds rate at 5.25-5.5%? Doesn’t add up, unless they’re in the bag for Trump/GOP, and want to turn a moderating housing market into a depressed one by the November elections. </p>
In short, I am not going to worry about today’s CPI report showing 0.3% inflation for a month instead of 0.2% inflation. Especially since average hourly earnings went up by 0.6% in the same month, and have beaten inflation by 1.4% in the last 12 months (and 1.8% for non-supervisors). </p>
Now if I start seeing a cutback in consumer spending or job growth take a significant downturn by March, then it’s time to worry. But there’s nothing I saw in the data today that warrants any fear for the future, at least for people that work real jobs and don’t spend time days blowing coke and trading paper. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-86300571412588334742024-02-12T19:11:00.004-06:002024-02-12T19:12:28.584-06:00Are WisGOPs trying to trap Gov Evers by accepting his maps, and keeping gerrymander for November?On the surface, this looks like a sign of progress. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">He says Republican senators will be discussing this option in closed caucus today</p>— Alexander Shur (@AlexanderShur) <a href="https://twitter.com/AlexanderShur/status/1755251661142982692?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 7, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Assembly Elections Committee chair Rep. Scott Krug tells me he supports passing Evers' maps without any changes.</p>— Alexander Shur (@AlexanderShur) <a href="https://twitter.com/AlexanderShur/status/1755298604661588126?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 7, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">NEW: I asked <a href="https://twitter.com/GovEvers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GovEvers</a> to clarify, yes or no, if the Legislature passes his maps unedited, whether he'd sign them into law.<br><br>"Yeah. I believed in them when we put it in, and I still believe in them now," Evers said. <br><br>Video to come, story runs at 5 <a href="https://twitter.com/CBS58?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CBS58</a></p>— A.J. Bayatpour (@AJBayatpour) <a href="https://twitter.com/AJBayatpour/status/1755718093651783720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 8, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
If signed into law, this would make maps much fairer for November than they are today. It would allow Dems a decent shot of winning control if they win statewide by about 3-5%, instead of having to win by 13-15%. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3YaCCm0aN78gwwbE6OGzIFTUngHt7xt-gJNGbr917DBnu8mEtP2YZa7R0KCRMZLUlJuu2tEvOZl0oPuoqxv3WzxRB5oaGoMKcA0yJt3cjlVRXrclj0jjH2RjR_MftSKwY1ElJpczgkXp7151JzY-wd6BSjgrBEIabBbnT-WeqWimEWI97Hkab4FXFQ8rO/s480/Wis%20Redistrict%20Evers%20Senate.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="808" data-original-width="832" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3YaCCm0aN78gwwbE6OGzIFTUngHt7xt-gJNGbr917DBnu8mEtP2YZa7R0KCRMZLUlJuu2tEvOZl0oPuoqxv3WzxRB5oaGoMKcA0yJt3cjlVRXrclj0jjH2RjR_MftSKwY1ElJpczgkXp7151JzY-wd6BSjgrBEIabBbnT-WeqWimEWI97Hkab4FXFQ8rO/s480/Wis%20Redistrict%20Evers%20Senate.png"/></a></div </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgErQ7jHUOFE215Q_8AVzmCvm_nemvrGDotvZt1jbzhroNrhKaZznYWI4v_47HPsOByfYnhaNAGgCYqdj6b8sAOfiC6l07RGEHSWEFi6EvU3eJAiq1UZ4GLeALvLOGlsbs3iRHtWcnjeKrKiyB_ShQL4C0Sm5g1Iz3BxaeT9PpQy5h1SSKgjGtJgZtUgaia/s480/Wis%20Redistrict%20-%20Assembly%20Evers%20Statewide.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="826" data-original-width="851" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgErQ7jHUOFE215Q_8AVzmCvm_nemvrGDotvZt1jbzhroNrhKaZznYWI4v_47HPsOByfYnhaNAGgCYqdj6b8sAOfiC6l07RGEHSWEFi6EvU3eJAiq1UZ4GLeALvLOGlsbs3iRHtWcnjeKrKiyB_ShQL4C0Sm5g1Iz3BxaeT9PpQy5h1SSKgjGtJgZtUgaia/s480/Wis%20Redistrict%20-%20Assembly%20Evers%20Statewide.png"/></a></div> </p>
But given that Republicans have fought every possible attempt to remove their gerrymander up to this point, why would they give in now? </p>
One possibility is that the GOP knows that taking Evers' maps is likely to be a better outcome than whatever decision the Wisconsin Supreme Court comes back with in the next month, as Evers' maps give GOPs a better chance of staying in power in the Legislature than the other maps in serious consideration. The negative partisan bias numbers in this chart show the advantage that GOPs would have under various map scenarios. </p>
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But Dem Congressman Mark Pocan thinks there is something more sinister going on. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Curious why the GOP in WI would now vote for the Gov’s maps? Me too.<br><br>If passed, the GOP will appeal to the 7th Circuit. Bad maps would continue in WI this fall.<br><br>The Supreme Court in WI clearly has this under their jurisdiction now. Don’t take the bait! <a href="https://t.co/lCpVwAwHg7">https://t.co/lCpVwAwHg7</a></p>— Mark Pocan (@MarkPocan) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkPocan/status/1756108952448700428?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
I wasn't seeing this when Mark first brought it up, and I didn't understand how appealing this would be different than appealing a decision from the State Supreme Court/. But because a Supreme Court decision sets new boundaries via a court decision, and not from a bill that goes through the typical legislative process, it is a different thing where a court decision is being appealed by the Legislature, vs some outside person complaining how wronged they were by the bill. </p>
And after some explanation and further analysis, the worry for Rep. Pocan and some others would be that this chain of events happens after a new maps bill is signed.
<blockquote> 1. Signing the maps opens the door for WILL or some other RW front group to get someone to file to lawsuit to the Federal courts.</p>
2. Federal courts put a hold on the new maps, which means: </p>
3. November 2024 elections are held under the GOP gerrymander. </blockquote>
<iframe width="480" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/piVnArp9ZE0" title="ITS A TRAP!" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe> </p>
With that in mind, I'd advise Evers to say "TOO LATE!" to the GOPs who could have done this when the Guv put out his first set of maps 3 years ago, and veto this. It's a very explainable thing to do, where Evers can explain that Robbin' Vos and company cannot be trusted to do anything in good faith, and that there is a Supreme Court decision due in a month, and we will see what happens with that. </p>
So let's see if the GOPs in the Legislature even try this desperate/cynical move to pass Governor Evers' maps in the next 2 weeks, before they go on their 10-month paid vacation. But if they do, I'd recommend Evers to just say NO to this gambit. We are so close to having fair maps for our State Legislature for the first time in 14 years. We need to lessen the chances of daylight to allow for a BS GOP maneuver that delays it for another election cycle.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-74322302691051758562024-02-11T13:10:00.006-06:002024-02-11T13:13:27.420-06:00Hey DC Dems - GOPs and DC Media are working as a team, willingly or not. GO AFTER THEM When I heard of the story of Trumpist Attorney Robert Hur giving a ratfuck of a report on Joe Biden's handling of classified documents (which Hur admits was legal and fine), I got enraged. Somewhat because of Hur's unwarranted judgments about Biden's state of mind, but mostly because it was such a PREDICTABLE hit job. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This is why Garland must go. If he’s so DUMB as to not think that Hur would have pulled this BS, and chose not to edit out the personal attacks before releasing the report, HE IS NOT CUT OUT FOR THE JOB.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wiunion?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#wiunion</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FireMerrickGarland?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FireMerrickGarland</a></p>— JakeEdwards (@JakeMadtown) <a href="https://twitter.com/JakeMadtown/status/1755981989994283450?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 9, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
The reason I say the word "predictable" was perfectly summed up in <a href=https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-9-2024> a recent Substack by historian Heather Cox Richardson. </a> Richardson notes that it has been SOP for Republicans for decades to (ab)use the power of investigation in order to amplify lies and slanders against Democrats. <blockquote> As far back as 1950, when Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI) insisted—without evidence—that the Department of State under Democratic president Harry Truman had been infiltrated by Communists, Republicans have used official investigations to smear their opponents. State Department officials condemned McCarthy’s “Sewer Politics” and the <em> New York Times </em>complained about his “hit-and-run” attacks, but McCarthy’s outrageous statements and hearings kept his accusations in the news. That media coverage, in turn, convinced many Americans that his charges were true. </p>
Other Republicans finally rejected McCarthy, but in 1996, congressional Republicans frustrated by the election of Democratic president Bill Clinton in 1992 and the Democrats’ subsequent expansion of the vote with the so-called Motor Voter law in 1993 resurrected his tactics. They launched investigations into two elections they insisted the Democrats had stolen. They discovered no fraud, but their investigation convinced a number of Americans that voter fraud was a serious problem. </p>
There were ten investigations into the 2012 attack on two U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed and several others wounded; Republican-dominated House committees held six of them. Kevin McCarthy bragged to Fox News personality Sean Hannity that the Benghazi special committee was part of a “strategy to fight and win” against then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. </p>
The strategy of weaponizing investigations went on to be central to the 2016 election, when Trump ran on the investigation of Clinton’s email practices, and to the 2020 election, when Trump tried to weaken Biden’s candidacy by trying to force Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to say that Ukraine was opening an investigation into Hunter Biden and the company he worked for. </p>
Going into 2024, the House is investigating Hunter Biden, and while witness testimony and evidence has not supported their contention that President Biden is corrupt, the stench of the hearings has convinced a number of MAGA voters of the opposite. </blockquote> Also note that the GOP House refuses to allow Hunter Biden to testify in public, and instead want to be able to take his words out of context in reports they will amplify on Faux News and other GOPper-ganda. Likewise, we have no tape of Biden's alleged mental lapses, just Hur's written opinions. </p>
By comparison, we have plenty of tape of Biden's likely opponent being senile, nuts, and dangerous to national security. Including this weekend. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This crazy person is unfit to be president. Why is this outrageous comment not the lead story on the <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@nytimes</a> <a href="https://t.co/WCA5MUccp4">https://t.co/WCA5MUccp4</a></p>— Pete Souza (@PeteSouza) <a href="https://twitter.com/PeteSouza/status/1756472284737401310?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 11, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">No cars or transit on 9/11. Trump would've had to walk 7mi through ash from Trump Tower to WTC. He did not.<br><br>"I went down there, and I watched our police and firemen,... down on SEVEN-ELEVEN,... down at the World Trade Center right after it came down!"<a href="https://t.co/1QO1oRyuKq">pic.twitter.com/1QO1oRyuKq</a></p>— Victoria Brownworth (@VABVOX) <a href="https://twitter.com/VABVOX/status/1756510683535950290?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 11, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
Trump can't even walk 18 holes, let alone 7 miles. Oh, but it's Biden's mental acuity and overall health that we should be worried about? BULLSHIT. </p>
I am sick and tired of Dems having to be 5 times better than Republicans to have things be evaluated equally. It is a failure of DC/Coastal Media that they continue to have this double-standard, and of DC Dems for not attacking DC Media for their pro-GOP reporting. </p>
Michelle Wolf nailed this at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2018. </p>
<iframe width="480" height="265" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QRK-z7MgEdk" title="Michelle Wolf Blasts The Media For Creating Trump" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe> </p>\
<blockquote> <em> "I think what no one in this room wants to admit, is that Trump has helped all of you. He couldn't sell steaks, or vodka, or water, or college, or ties, or Eric. <strong> But he has helped you. He's helped you sell your papers, and your books, and your TV. You helped create this monster, and now you're profiting off of him. </strong> And if you're gonna profit off of Trump, you should at least give him some money because HE DOESN'T HAVE ANY." </em> </blockquote>
All Dems should treat the media with the contempt that DC Republicans pretend to give when they're trying to "work the refs" into amplifying the lies and misdirections they want average voters to hear. And DC Dems should be directing the media back to the reality they refuse to cover, and just like Faux News, they need to be constantly doing it, and not letting up until those discussions actually happen. Stop the typical DC Dem act of talking about something for two days and then moving on to something else in the name of "governance" or some other "go high" BS that stopped being something that made a difference in elections a decade ago. </p>
Elite DC/Coastal Media still thinks politics in 2024 is all a game where they can profit of off ratings and the interest of what is perceived to be a close race. They will not be fair in 2024, and should be considered the enemy until they are forced to call it fair. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-72365433814522274032024-02-10T12:27:00.001-06:002024-02-10T12:27:12.522-06:00Warm February having bad economic side effects for some in Wisconsin
Been some unusual and damaging weather in these parts for the usually cold and snowy month of February. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Yesterday was so similar to January 7, 2008. That was the day the EF-3 tornado hit Wheatland in Kenosha County. Yesterday's tornado in Evansville was stronger than any tornado we had all of last year anywhere in the state. <a href="https://t.co/9Yczx3dL8i">pic.twitter.com/9Yczx3dL8i</a></p>— Mark Baden (@Mark_Baden) <a href="https://twitter.com/Mark_Baden/status/1756102977281004019?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 9, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Drone video of some of the Evansville tornado damage taking by our CBS 58 photojournalists. <a href="https://t.co/CXLICNRy2u">pic.twitter.com/CXLICNRy2u</a></p>— Sam Kuffel (@SamKuffelWx) <a href="https://twitter.com/SamKuffelWx/status/1756163890998607891?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
On the other end of the state, <a href=https://www.jsonline.com/story/entertainment/2024/02/09/northern-wisconsin-bars-restaurants-and-hotels-struggle-without-snow/72437591007/> the lack of snow up North is leading to economic hardship for businesses that rely on Winter tourism. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Authorities in northern Wisconsin are reminding people to stay off the ice following a recent incident where an ATV and some fishing equipment fell through the ice.<a href="https://t.co/CaGWH5FX0F">https://t.co/CaGWH5FX0F</a></p>— WFRV Local 5 (@WFRVLocal5) <a href="https://twitter.com/WFRVLocal5/status/1756317097049629145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Northern Wisconsin bars, restaurants and hotels struggle without snow. <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnMercure?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JohnMercure</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/620wtmj?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@620wtmj</a> have been doing a good job of covering this story. Trying to drink more <a href="https://twitter.com/Leinenkugels?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Leinenkugels</a> at Clayton’s to help out Scott and Renee. <a href="https://t.co/Ix1bnpi410">https://t.co/Ix1bnpi410</a></p>— Dick Leinenkugel (@DickLeinie) <a href="https://twitter.com/DickLeinie/status/1756345629960229192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote> At Clayton's 1881 Room restaurant in Three Lakes, owner Scott Wisner is crossing his fingers to get 100 customers through the door in any given week, about a third of what they get in a normal winter. </p>
At Track Side rentals and service shop in Eagle River, workers are catching up on projects around the shop as not a single one of their 75 rentable snowmobiles have hit a trail this winter season. </p>
Mercer's Great Northern Hotel's best weekend this season saw just 10 of its 80 rooms rented. Last winter all 80 rooms were rented every weekend from Christmas to the beginning of March. </p>
"It's been pretty awful," said Eric Behnke, who owns the hotel. "It's not a fun time up here.".... </p>
"We make money for three or four months, then operate in the red for four months, and usually recoup when snowmobilers come up," Behnke said. "To go nine months in the red — I don't know if it's possible to survive that." </blockquote> And from the "snow tourism" side doesn't look like it's going to be any better for the upcoming President's Day Weekend (when most of Illinois is off on that Monday). Barring some unforeseen snowfall this week, the deficit for Northwoods tourism businesses is likely to grow by quite a bit. </p>
Interestingly, <a href=https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/lfb/section_13_10/2024_02_01_military_affairs_additional_funding_to_the_wisconsin_disaster_fund.pdf> the State of Wisconsin just added more than $3 million dollars to pay for weather-related disasters, </a> with much of that heading to Northern Wisconsin. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbG7P1U-ZjeqG6PuPc-bDDY0agmi0KKbj45Dep1uCVmr-tDb9dElTDuSouUcTJigh8M_fP0BHjPw7v6gBUcQ4CU8nJbxyAPEoWIXh8HsbyRtfiE78tOweda6PsKtdBh6PiwfK4q_0np2miuLXp9Oe8eTf07P8CJUANEyy_jboefa7zniHkHeduWVIC1UA9/s500/2023-24%20Wis%20disaster%20assitance%20claims.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="500" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="672" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbG7P1U-ZjeqG6PuPc-bDDY0agmi0KKbj45Dep1uCVmr-tDb9dElTDuSouUcTJigh8M_fP0BHjPw7v6gBUcQ4CU8nJbxyAPEoWIXh8HsbyRtfiE78tOweda6PsKtdBh6PiwfK4q_0np2miuLXp9Oe8eTf07P8CJUANEyy_jboefa7zniHkHeduWVIC1UA9/s500/2023-24%20Wis%20disaster%20assitance%20claims.png"/></a></div> </p>
So is it time for Governor Evers to call for using some of our surplus to help the people in Northern Wisconsin and Rock County that suffered damages due to weather, instead of more tax cuts to the rich and comfortable? And given that every legislator north of Highway 29 is a Republican (thanks gerrymandering!), why aren't they raising more of a concern about the many constituents that are going to be going through hard times due to this warm winter? </p>
Seems like that may be in order before the Legislature goes on their 10-month paid vacation. Or maybe Governor Evers has to drop a line to President Biden asking for some FEMA help for these weather-related damages, if the state doesn't do anything (although that takes time to get reimbursements on)? </p>
Not that I'm complaining about a lack of 10-degree days (I'm liking it a lot, in fact), but I know that it's something that has its drawbacks. Especially when it's a sudden change that damages the economy as it has in February 2024. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-75818059543948564052024-02-08T20:37:00.003-06:002024-02-08T20:37:37.464-06:00$2 billion in GOP tax cuts would bust Wisconsin's budget. Especially after recent developments Yesterday, the Joint Finance Committee met and the GOP-dominated panel passed along a series of tax cuts, likely sending it to a vote of the full Legislature next week. <blockquote> The state Assembly is set to vote next week on a $2.1 billion tax package that would significantly expand the state's second-lowest tax bracket to include more than 1 million Wisconsin residents earning between $19,000 and $150,000 per year, but Gov. Tony Evers is noncommital on supporting it. </p>
The Legislature's Joint Finance Committee voted 11-4 along party lines on Wednesday to advance the four Republican bills, which were introduced late last month and are scheduled for an Assembly vote on Feb. 13. </p>
The proposal would overhaul the state's tax system by also exempting up to $75,000 of retirees' income and expanding tax credits for married filers and for filers with children. </blockquote> That's not the entire context of the tax cuts, as that "$19,000 to $150,000" is <em> taxable </em> income, in a state that already exempts as much as $23,600 for married couples, and because Wisconsin already exempts Social Security and some federal pension income for its retirees. But there are still a few million Wisconsinites that would likely get some kind of tax relief out of these GOP tax cuts, especially those in the middle classes and above. </p>
So let's first look at the total price tag of these tax cuts, which wouldn't hit the state's bottom line until after the next Fiscal Year starts on July 1. And you'll see some tax cuts are a lot bigger than others. </p>
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I'll add that the reason the tax bracket cut is larger in Fiscal Year 2025 is because the GOP bill also wants to have the Wisconsin Department of Revenue to update the withholding tables on July 1, increasing the take-home pay on every paycheck instead of having it tax cuts off in higher refunds (you'll likely see those higher refunds in the next 2 months). </p>
Let's also take a step back and look at what the state's budget situation is before being affected by any of these tax cuts. There already was going to be a huge imbalance between revenues and expenses for this Fiscal Year, as the surplus is being spent down on a number of one-time spending items, including over $1 billion to pay for capital projects in cash instead of borrowing, and an additional $555 million being sent into the Transportation Fund. </p>
Then the LFB told us 2 weeks ago <a href=https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/lfb/revenue_estimates/188_january_24_2024.pdf> that revenue growth was going to be a bit less than what was assumed in the state budget. </a> And in the same meeting where the Joint Finance Committee passed the tax cuts, they also agreed to <a href=https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/lfb/bill_summaries/2023_25/0921_ab_921_building_projects_for_uw_system_2_7_24.pdf> spend another $423 million in cash-funded projects for the UW System, </a> as part of the deal where the UW limited their DEI initiatives at Robbin' Vos' demands. </p>
That means that due to changes on both the revenue and expenditure sides, the $7 billion that we carried over on June 30, 2023 will diminish over the following 2 years. </p>
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And that means there is less surplus to play with on tax cuts. Which led to a concern from Joint Finance Dems about what these GOP tax cuts would do to future budgets. <blockquote> Rep. Tip McGuire, D-Kenosha, said he's worried the package could lead the state into a risky financial position. </P>
"I’m worried that we would be running Illinois-style deficits. I’m worried that this would be fiscally irresponsible and that the people that would support this would be fiscally irresponsible budgeters, or FIBs," McGuire said. </blockquote> And when you look at the numbers, you can see why Rep. McGuire would say that. It's one thing to spend $3 billion more than you take in for one year, as Wisconsin is slated to do on a one-time basis in Fiscal 2024, as long as you go back near balance in the next year. It's a whole 'nother thing to run $2 billion+ deficits year after year, which is what is slated to happen if all of these GOP tax cuts were to be put in place. </p>
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And that imbalance means that we would have to figure out a way to make up more than $3 billion in the next budget, instead of having a cushion of more than $2.5 billion. </p>
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But I'll note that the Republicans put these tax cuts in the form of 4 separate bills, which may give a way out. Because the price tag of the higher married couple credit and expanded child care credit is much less than the lower tax brackets or retirement income tax cut (those two total just under $234 millon a year), Governor Evers could sign those two tax credits, and veto the others. Then Tony can say "let's see where we stand at the next budget" to see if there is a better chance of the cushion growing in the meantime. </p>
Both Dems and Republicans would get something out of it, and both sides can make their arguments for or against more tax cuts (and the budget handcuffs they would impose) this Fall during Election season under fair maps. Who says no?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-82258040243641084122024-02-06T19:36:00.004-06:002024-02-06T19:36:52.469-06:00A huge 2023 for construction in America. Biden stimulus has to be given credit for it As part of a series of strong pieces of data, I note that construction spending and the construction sector in general has become a sizable boost to our economy in the Biden presidency. That continued with <a href=https://www.census.gov/construction/c30/pdf/release.pdf> another positive month of construction spending in December, </a>as we found out last week. <blockquote> Construction spending during December 2023 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2,096.0 billion, 0.9 percent (± 0.8 percent) above the revised November estimate of $2,078.3 billion. The December figure is 13.9 percent (±1.5 percent) above the December 2022 estimate of $1,840.9 billion. The value of construction in 2023 was $1,978.7 billion, 7.0 percent (±1.0 percent) above the $1,848.7 billion spent in 2022. </blockquote> An increase of nearly 14% year-over-year is quite a jump, given how inflation grew by less than 4% in the same time period. And one of the reasons behind the gain is that a decline in single-family home construction reversed starting in April, with the amount of new single-family homes being put into service going up by more than 14% in the last 8 months of the year. </p>
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That increase in residential construction goes along with Biden/Dem policies that have kicked in over the last two years which have encouraged more street and road repairs, as well as a boom in building for manufacturing businesses. </p>
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With all of that new construction happening, it's not a surprise that there has been a steady increase of construction jobs over the last two years. That's happening at the same time that manufacturing hiring has mostly leveled off (which is something to keep an eye on, given all of the new manufacturing facilities that are being built). </p>
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It's remarkable that the construction strength has continued even as interest rates have gone up, which increases borrowing costs for those projects. It's quite an accomplishment, and it's something that the Biden Administration and other Dems should talk about more, as this construction boom is something that should be easy to show in communities around the country, and seems to be directly related to 2021 stimulus policies that resulted from Dems having complete control of government in DC. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-60875989397171427072024-02-03T12:50:00.009-06:002024-02-03T12:55:10.534-06:00Even outside consultants agree WisDems are the only ones that can do fair maps Those of us who believe in fairness and decency figured that we'd hear good news this week from the 2 PoliSci professors that are looking at possible redraws of Wisconsin's Legislative maps. But I was still surprised to see their report <a href=https://acefiling.wicourts.gov/document/uploaded/2023AP001399/760087> (which you can read here) </a>say this. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">COURT NEWS: Consultants hired by state Supreme Court find maps from GOP lawmakers, conservative law firm WILL partisan gerrymanders not worth further consideration. Four 4 Dem maps similar in meeting criteria. Decline to draw their own maps unless court orders them to do so.</p>— JR Ross (@jrrosswrites) <a href="https://twitter.com/jrrosswrites/status/1753227714352259301?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Consultants reject claim GOP majorities due to geography. Wrote Dems would need "well above majority" to win Legislature under GOP maps.<br><br>"That kind of insulation from the forces of electoral change is the hallmark of a gerrymander. To put it simply, geography is not destiny.” <a href="https://t.co/0QZob0Rzj9">https://t.co/0QZob0Rzj9</a></p>— JR Ross (@jrrosswrites) <a href="https://twitter.com/jrrosswrites/status/1753236329016508597?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
Which tells you that the consultants were looking at OUTCOMES over how a map might "look" geographically or other criteria. Basically a "reverse gerrymander", undoing outcomes that are not in line with the wishes of the statewide electorate. </p>
This is further illustrated by a number of analyses the consultants gave which discussed results of statewide elections since 2016, and whether the winner of those races carried a majority of seats in the State Assembly and State Senate. They combined that information into a stat called <em> mean-median </em> which is the difference between the outcome in the statewide races, and where the control of a legislative chamber may happen. </p>
The Dem-drawn maps all were relatively close on this measure. The GOP gerrymanders? They were not (although the "Johnson" maps from WILL are at least closer than the garbage we have today). </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge5jyGfc-X21p6byq6Az9y2-nyDW9O9NYqDkLblb6baM77Gn1gRmgk6reyClhTxLGb88e54UkQXviJV8VdceIbgInYqBmSNZjY-Oc-OEJcnrLvtHM6Q10JzS2EMFf5_RAPSbSFHRlp0vOACSN3_UAe-Cp4U7FBiV_FJqaLMnLFDEBdljv8tf9FnjEvjEC5/s500/Wis%20Redistrict%20-%20consultants%20mean-median.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="500" data-original-height="282" data-original-width="993" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge5jyGfc-X21p6byq6Az9y2-nyDW9O9NYqDkLblb6baM77Gn1gRmgk6reyClhTxLGb88e54UkQXviJV8VdceIbgInYqBmSNZjY-Oc-OEJcnrLvtHM6Q10JzS2EMFf5_RAPSbSFHRlp0vOACSN3_UAe-Cp4U7FBiV_FJqaLMnLFDEBdljv8tf9FnjEvjEC5/s500/Wis%20Redistrict%20-%20consultants%20mean-median.png"/></a></div> </p>
The consultants also included a stat called "Majoritarian Concordance", which looks at how often the statewide winner would have also won a majority of districts in the Legislature. The GOP gerrymander is obvious here, but there is also a bit of difference between the Dem maps. </p>
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In digging into this stat further, I note that Tony Evers' 1.2% win in 2018 would have still seen Republicans winning a majority of Assembly seats in every one of these maps, and all but 1 of the Senate maps. But Joe Biden's 0.6% win in 2020 also is a Dem win on half of the Dem maps, and Josh Kaul's 1.4% win in 2022 is a Dem majority in 3 of 4 Dem maps (albeit not the same 3 of 4, which is interesting). </p>
On the flip side, Republican Ron Johnson's 1.0% win in 2022 is an Assembly GOP majority in 3 of the 4 Dem maps, and a Senate GOP majority in 2 of the 4. That is also the way it should work. I'm a staunch Dem, but I'm not a hack, and if GOPs can actually win statewide, they deserve to be in control. </p>
So let's review these maps, and I'll use the Senate maps for ease of viewing. First, we have the maps Governor Evers sent to SCOWIS. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiked_KT_P6meK5f6mt1l7pR5PhT9YIywSsGlR9Wam7GWulkWfKweanHAZPltpKJ5-L-XLStc1gAPtkbbfQJ1sIRGB1Wm13Ol7wsvW4eBe3iyIdjW_BMlolXPqQhJUPBPDhsIVfFM4RjVjGecrebUMJ_Ij1beoIWwBPejrstlmoJXrkpAKc8tVyTyRHB0FL/s450/Wis%20Redistrict%20Evers%20Senate.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="450" data-original-height="808" data-original-width="832" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiked_KT_P6meK5f6mt1l7pR5PhT9YIywSsGlR9Wam7GWulkWfKweanHAZPltpKJ5-L-XLStc1gAPtkbbfQJ1sIRGB1Wm13Ol7wsvW4eBe3iyIdjW_BMlolXPqQhJUPBPDhsIVfFM4RjVjGecrebUMJ_Ij1beoIWwBPejrstlmoJXrkpAKc8tVyTyRHB0FL/s450/Wis%20Redistrict%20Evers%20Senate.png"/></a></div> </p>
Then, we have the maps that were presented by Clarke and the other defendants in the lawsuit against the WisGOP Legislature. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcpKbBP1sFRc8eDhIDYqpbBmdBtVgtn6HpKAo4A3ZA9FYrE16qiGSV6bMFHOyhf9Jav4zWb_CVYDaGLEq5PvNhRbo9CuJ3syiabQveSfL98j73MXzguL4o9ippdMe6YtE24u-o9EBhAWhXHVMAP3PaxsBmoGLy0ba5CrRBxdJvzAa7JePWADxpkX1gyfAC/s480/Wis%20Redistrict%20Clarke%20Senate.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="480" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="802" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcpKbBP1sFRc8eDhIDYqpbBmdBtVgtn6HpKAo4A3ZA9FYrE16qiGSV6bMFHOyhf9Jav4zWb_CVYDaGLEq5PvNhRbo9CuJ3syiabQveSfL98j73MXzguL4o9ippdMe6YtE24u-o9EBhAWhXHVMAP3PaxsBmoGLy0ba5CrRBxdJvzAa7JePWADxpkX1gyfAC/s480/Wis%20Redistrict%20Clarke%20Senate.png"/></a></div> </p>
Then here is what the Wisconsin Senate Dems wanted to be able to run on. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcBoUy_OOV73lW80jV5uUGREFlWWG3D-CJqmvjbhuxB43CHrblB5DCNAViCMeJJWbxfEfuT1kQZB0q1G4XDaTQ5KXX-6KI4akd4Y2S_BbVlX1pTxPl5y8hUPtAXeicVf_u28v6AmY6X-5FVODhxflBOC1fkwCz_ReqXXwRZDZn10jGqEo6hyphenhyphenVEpAk9m4fY/s460/Wis%20Redistrict%20Dem%20Senate.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="460" data-original-height="812" data-original-width="803" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcBoUy_OOV73lW80jV5uUGREFlWWG3D-CJqmvjbhuxB43CHrblB5DCNAViCMeJJWbxfEfuT1kQZB0q1G4XDaTQ5KXX-6KI4akd4Y2S_BbVlX1pTxPl5y8hUPtAXeicVf_u28v6AmY6X-5FVODhxflBOC1fkwCz_ReqXXwRZDZn10jGqEo6hyphenhyphenVEpAk9m4fY/s460/Wis%20Redistrict%20Dem%20Senate.png"/></a></div> </p>
And the last map is one drawn up by a set of mathematicians who wanted balance as much as possible, which is listed as "Wright" in the consultants analyses. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXiWV97tm-QhwOb3I-N2NtfYfjSdzdHsPSZpW7kiVWMp6DMQuhvUIjsdZuO2-WJ6n2iOx4eSsIKSRamR6vpGvdCdjRUZOWjEczfvzLApPCeD0XUyEztFanjX0rd-c9eiSGPVFLlDec2el42ZAbyNKhPANJ3aOu1RKaMNamJkkwq_rihxweus6bhDvHTuDC/s460/Wis%20redistrict%20maps%20-%20Wright%20math%20people.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="460" data-original-height="787" data-original-width="798" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXiWV97tm-QhwOb3I-N2NtfYfjSdzdHsPSZpW7kiVWMp6DMQuhvUIjsdZuO2-WJ6n2iOx4eSsIKSRamR6vpGvdCdjRUZOWjEczfvzLApPCeD0XUyEztFanjX0rd-c9eiSGPVFLlDec2el42ZAbyNKhPANJ3aOu1RKaMNamJkkwq_rihxweus6bhDvHTuDC/s460/Wis%20redistrict%20maps%20-%20Wright%20math%20people.png"/></a></div> </p>
Based on the consultants' report, I like the Clarke maps and Governor Evers' maps for fairness. And given that the Clarke maps run the table in picking the Assembly winners in the 2020s, and split up fewer communities and wards than any map not drawn up by WILL, I'd lean toward that one, if I had one to pick. </p>
I would guess/hope that means the Wisconsin Supreme Court would choose one of these 4 maps, using various criteria that I would think they'd explain in their decision. And that we find out in the next month, to both satisfy the Wisconsin Elections Commission's deadline, and to allow the GOP to inevitably try their Hail Mary attempt to get the US Supreme Court to break their own precedent, and try to interfere with a State Legislature's map largely drawn on the basis of election outcomes. </p>
If the maps are allowed to stand, then we get our first legitimate fight for legislative control in 14 years, and it's something that is so badly needed. Not only because I think it'll lead to better policy outcomes, but also because many more legislators will finally have to stop worrying as much about what their party bosses and dimwitted primary interests think, and care more about normal Wisconsin voters who just want our lawmakers to deal with real problems, and try to give them a better chance of success and fairness in their everyday lives. </p>
<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zj3BtaE84qQ" title="Mills Lane - Let's Get It On!" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-83909367884886335272024-02-02T17:53:00.000-06:002024-02-02T17:53:10.505-06:002024 jobs market started out with a bang. And 2023 ended up being even better Today portended to be a big jobs report. First of all to see if Americans kept gaining jobs at the start of 2024, after what had been a strong 2023. </p>
On that front, January was pretty darned good for American workers. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">JUST IN: The US economy added a blockbuster 353,000 jobs in January, far exceeding expectations of 180,000. This is a really healthy economy. (December jobs revised up to 333,000)<br><br>Unemployment rate: 3.7%<br><br>Wage growth: 4.5% in past year —>far ahead of 3.4% inflation <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/jobs?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#jobs</a></p>— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) <a href="https://twitter.com/byHeatherLong/status/1753411268503822596?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">353,000 jobs were added in January. Strong hiring across the board<br><br>Biz +74,000<br>Healthcare +70,000<br>Retail +45,000<br>Gov't +36,000<br>Social aid +30,000<br>Manufacturing +23,000<br>Information +15,000 (Film industry +12,000)<br>Construction +11,000<br>Hospitality +11,000<br>Warehouse +5,500</p>— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) <a href="https://twitter.com/byHeatherLong/status/1753412985828016475?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
That's great in its own right, but the bigger news was that the January report also featured the annual benchmarking where the Bureau of Labor Statistics takes all of the added data from the "gold standard" Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) and other data and revises all of the months of 2023. And that showed 2023 being even better than we knew. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Job growth "slowed" last year, but some perspective: After today's revisions, 2023 now stands as the best year for job growth since 1999, not counting the two years immediately before, as the economy emerged from the pandemic. <a href="https://t.co/bTlv99Pyyx">https://t.co/bTlv99Pyyx</a> <a href="https://t.co/L66CtP3ak1">pic.twitter.com/L66CtP3ak1</a></p>— Ben Casselman (@bencasselman) <a href="https://twitter.com/bencasselman/status/1753418903282225622?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
Which is pretty amazing given that unemployment started the year at 3.4% and in theory there shouldn't have been many more jobs to be found. But we kept rolling along, and in fact, job growth for 2023 didn't level off nearly as much as we thought in the 2nd half of the year, as total job growth revised up by 359,000. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwRGFSqKOurSqmcdoVxxdU1iZFMC-YIYgLHlVkRoe6znNq-PwSfQG8SryaY14qPz_ZS6bM0AOTIG5k6pVUXBvQZrPDu9mE_-3KusSqZ_haxEPZQPKo5rOOn7lTko9H3vuFoZ9v9Oz9USAmRH47dnvVhlkCovoPym8zV67ZkcSH_Bp_6QJWUJUzdKv-vW3M/s480/image011.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="407" data-original-width="557" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwRGFSqKOurSqmcdoVxxdU1iZFMC-YIYgLHlVkRoe6znNq-PwSfQG8SryaY14qPz_ZS6bM0AOTIG5k6pVUXBvQZrPDu9mE_-3KusSqZ_haxEPZQPKo5rOOn7lTko9H3vuFoZ9v9Oz9USAmRH47dnvVhlkCovoPym8zV67ZkcSH_Bp_6QJWUJUzdKv-vW3M/s480/image011.png"/></a></div> </p>
Previous years were also revised, which indicated that overall numbers weren't that different, but with some changes if broken down into 6-month intervals. For example, job growth was stronger in the first 6 months of the Biden Administration than numbers previously indicated, but also that late 2021 and late 2022 weren't as big for gains as originally indicated (although still pretty darn good). </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjBlectqseOCS1JbqXYQmhelPNmOt3GkIxa2rUGRnKJD-Fv0vc1cJGBBeawTkfUkT2oIAfZkR3h9ER9UfQIbud7fOQCxpuMIG4opndx4JFI0J45_ROKEoNJsCXqdq_9aIGAheC3Z55CGsthxGAhXQMRnYnbeSccokx2EnhyphenhyphenKXvZ-P26Aycs_0jYNXZ0yQ6/s500/image006.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="500" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="854" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjBlectqseOCS1JbqXYQmhelPNmOt3GkIxa2rUGRnKJD-Fv0vc1cJGBBeawTkfUkT2oIAfZkR3h9ER9UfQIbud7fOQCxpuMIG4opndx4JFI0J45_ROKEoNJsCXqdq_9aIGAheC3Z55CGsthxGAhXQMRnYnbeSccokx2EnhyphenhyphenKXvZ-P26Aycs_0jYNXZ0yQ6/s500/image006.png"/></a></div> </p>
What you see here is a steady US jobs market since inflation peaked in mid-2022, and it shows that Fed concerns of overheating have been off-base for quite a while. </p>
Generally I'd say "what's not to like"? But I do notice the lower participation rate of 62.5% in December and January compared to 62.8% that we had in November, and average weekly hours worked dropped by 0.2 hours, meaning that weekly wages fell by 39 cents while hourly wages were going up. That may be a reflection of the horrible cold snap that hit in mid-January (which is when the monthly jobs report was compiling its data), but let's see if that means there might be soft underbelly that creeps up as 2024 moves ahead. </p>
But that also illustrates how you have to grasp for bad things in this otherwise great jobs report. It offers even more proof that sustaining this strong economy has to be the overall goal for President Biden and honest Americans in 2024. Prices are in check, and <a href=https://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.nr0.htm> productivity is up. </a> And yes, we gotta keep it ROLLIN'. </p>
<iframe width="480" height="285" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RYnFIRc0k6E" title="Limp Bizkit - Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle)" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe> </p>
The bigger threat for 2024 is people not spending on big-ticket items because of interest rates that are higher than they need to be, or losing jobs not because of a soft economy, but because of corporate greed. </p> Those are the things we need to call out and fight against in this Election Year. Things are very good overall, but they could be even better if the Masters of the Universe realized that they won't be allowed to get away with trying to steal from others and damage this economy without paying a price themselves. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-22125964870290836362024-01-30T19:04:00.007-06:002024-01-30T19:42:19.626-06:00CEOs excel at two things - grabbing money, and screwing things up as they do
With 40 years of tax cuts for the rich and corporate, we've gotten a culture of CEO that believes his (almost always his) own hype, and cares more about making their numbers and grabbing what they can over having any kind of concern over quality or injury that this mentality might cause. </p>
<a href=https://defector.com/how-will-the-golden-age-of-making-it-worse-end> David Roth has an excellent column in Defector where he notes that most Americans seethe at this reality, </a> yet try to muddle past the sociopathy and mediocrity that exists in corporate boardrooms. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY6XONi-CK3CIxq67qrJ3HrtBYBhZlGUzvJ1B_ht-2W_AuOZpUIuzXYuf79RRefzhbLdqNfKcNrjwqJag_LpyZVAirj6bmPBjIkxbrjzpC5eGOqF9jidRSnuGx_9XbJbrmzhN9KMbEUcbAZJYIMs9q5czDtB8RD1_OYZIzqTUEwFUhqJEcir0YOdMIn7Ku/s450/David%20Roth%20-%20Boeing%20stuff.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="450" data-original-height="767" data-original-width="753" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY6XONi-CK3CIxq67qrJ3HrtBYBhZlGUzvJ1B_ht-2W_AuOZpUIuzXYuf79RRefzhbLdqNfKcNrjwqJag_LpyZVAirj6bmPBjIkxbrjzpC5eGOqF9jidRSnuGx_9XbJbrmzhN9KMbEUcbAZJYIMs9q5czDtB8RD1_OYZIzqTUEwFUhqJEcir0YOdMIn7Ku/s450/David%20Roth%20-%20Boeing%20stuff.png"/></a></div> </p>
But then there's a point when everyday CEO arrogance, neglect and greed can't be ignored any more. Roth points out that it is no coincidence that more Boeing planes are falling apart when its corporate executives decided that "profit by any means necessary" was going to be the rule they lived by.
<blockquote> As someone who has been on four different Boeing-made airplanes in the last week, I can attest to the limits of this fantasy [of retribution against executives] in the face of the prospect that a door on your airplane — the production of which was outsourced and subcontracted by a flub-prone duopoly to save some money; the installation and inspection of which was overseen by an overworked and multiply pressured person working in a conflicted and careless system, also to save some money — might blow off at altitude. There are some problems an individual is not equipped to fix, and "airplane now has moonroof" is one of the classics, there. More to the point, the bad people enabling or actively authoring those problems can seem not merely out of reach but safely within a parallel reality that is, if not any less brutish or ugly or stupid, notably better insulated. You think less of mounting a Jack Reacher-style offensive on Boeing's executive suite, in that situation, and more about how strong an airplane seat belt is, really, and I guess also how reliable the subcontractor that produced that seatbelt was, and how carefully that was inspected. </p>
There's a bit in Maureen Tkacik's <a href=https://newrepublic.com/article/154944/boeing-737-max-investigation-indonesia-lion-air-ethiopian-airlines-managerial-revolution> comprehensively damning 2019 feature </a>about Boeing in The New Republic that I keep coming back to, both here and in general. The central tension of that story is about how, as a former Boeing physicist told Tkacik, "a long and proud 'safety culture' was rapidly being replaced... with 'a culture of financial bullshit.'" The supplanting of that purpose — of any purpose, really, at just about any business in just about any industry you can think of — with the blank nihilism of financial capitalism's profit-driven imperatives is familiar by now; <strong> management's quest to see how much more cheaply an increasingly poor product can be sold at the same price and under the same name as what came before is, at bottom, the story of basically every industry or institution currently in decline or collapse. </strong> </p>
If it was always foolish to expect the free market to make things better, it feels more fanciful by the day to imagine a future in which the cynics and sociopaths in charge of that market do anything but continue to make it worse; they've evinced no capacity for that, but also no interest in it. <strong> Whether this deterioration is the result of buccaneering libertarian delusion or just a bloodless calculation that concepts like "safety" and "quality" are more nice-to-have's than need-to-have's, it appears to be the only idea that any of these people have. As this slips further into abstraction — if those mishaps-at-altitude don't really ding the stock price enough to bother any of the parties capable of doing something about them — the problem compounds and compounds. </strong> In the case of my industry, there is the sense that the business dipshits smashing up various institutions and lives simply care more about their divine right to smash things up than they do about anything else; something new can be built around the ruins they make, but the needless, ugly, colossal waste of it all is offensive all the same. Also none of us know how to make airplanes. </blockquote> These "business leaders" don't create anything, besides maybe more schemes to extract funds from companies without any need to work harder or do anything better. </p>
As Roth alludes to, the recent blood-lettings in print and online journalism are yet another exampe where hedge funders don't care about the importance and consumer experience of the product, and will bleed those publications dry without caring about the consequences to the public when it comes to losing quality writing and reporting. <blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I was wondering “how do you fuck up Sports Illustrated!?” But it’s unfuckupable unless your intention is to destroy it which is what all hedge fund bullshit companies do. They create nothing they just take good things, squeeze every penny from it, & kick its corpse in a ditch</p>— Chris Calogero (@RealChrisCal) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealChrisCal/status/1748423726914535701?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 19, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">LA Times’ billionaire owner <a href="https://twitter.com/DrPatSoonShiong?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DrPatSoonShiong</a> sought to kill a story on another LA billionaire doctor.<br><br>It added to tension with executive editor who then resigned as Soon-shiong planned layoff of 115 journalists. <a href="https://t.co/iLeofqcW1r">https://t.co/iLeofqcW1r</a></p>— Margot Roosevelt (@margotroosevelt) <a href="https://twitter.com/margotroosevelt/status/1751088367805354133?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@nytimes</a> is hiring engineers and editors for a new team that will experiment with generative AI, and journalists will still write, edit, and report the news. <a href="https://t.co/OEJqStJhGI">https://t.co/OEJqStJhGI</a></p>— Nieman Lab (@NiemanLab) <a href="https://twitter.com/NiemanLab/status/1752473016422793326?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 30, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">After 17.5 years, I (along with about 240 other colleagues) decided to take a buyout and leave The Washington Post at the end of 2023. It was the hardest decision I've ever made.</p>— Whitney Shefte (@whitneyshefte) <a href="https://twitter.com/whitneyshefte/status/1742558351890792689?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 3, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
Now Some of those that are laid off will land on their feet in the industry (the great <a href=https://newrepublic.com/authors/greg-sargent> Greg Sargent quickly moved from WaPo to the New Republic, </a>for example). But it's still going to be a net loss in the long run, as it becomes harder for a shrinking number of publications to not only look after national matters, but local day-to-day news that is more likely to have an immediate effect on readers' lives. </p>
And I don't think it's any coincidence that CEOs have become more publicly obnoxious and uncaring after the 2017 GOP Tax Scam cut tax rates for the rich and corporate, and increased the incentive to hoard profits over paying workers or investing in improving the product. And if they can screw over everyday consumers over by using their market power to raise prices while misdirecting the blame, all the better. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">“Prices rose by 3.4% over the past year, but input costs for producers increased by just 1%.”<br>Half of recent US inflation due to corporate greed | The Guardian <a href="https://t.co/98G7wpFYBD">https://t.co/98G7wpFYBD</a></p>— Esther Kaplan (@estherbrooklyn) <a href="https://twitter.com/estherbrooklyn/status/1750415523886858457?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 25, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote> The report’s authors scoured corporate earnings calls and found executives bragging to shareholders about keeping prices high and widening profit margins as input costs come down. </p>
The findings come as the Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates to their highest point in 20 years. The report casts serious doubt on the need for further interest rate hikes, and instead calls for stronger policies to rein in “corporate profiteering”. </p>
Prices rose in 2021 as labor costs jumped and supply chain shocks from the pandemic and the Ukraine war snarled shipping traffic and left energy supplies in question. But those issues have in many cases been fully sorted out or are easing, and the labor market has stabilized. Many commodities and services producers’ prices have actually decreased, the report notes. </blockquote>
This type of greed and "get mine" mentality brings us back to Roth and his reflections on Boeing's cost-cutting, and how expendable these "leaders" think anyone outside of their Club is.
<blockquote> The physicist who talked to Tkacik about the "culture of financial bullshit" told her, too, about his attempts to get through to Wall Street types that shareholders were at much greater risk from that recklessness than they were by the deliberateness and expense of the old, dying "safety culture" that it was replacing. He tells Tkacik about a Wall Street analyst telling him: "'Look, I get it. What you’re telling me is that your business is different. That you’re <em> special. </eM> Well, listen: Everybody thinks his business is different, <em> because </em>everybody is the same. Nobody. Is. Different </p>
At some level, this is just one of the asshole capitalists who are wrecking the world talking like the sort of asshole capitalist who would wreck the world. But there is a threat only barely latent in it, too. It's an inversion of the way in which ideas like "everybody is the same" have traditionally been used in the culture; where that has typically been deployed, always rhetorically and usually insincerely, as a politician's shorthand for the belief that every life has value and every person's dignity is meaningful, <strong> it is here an assertion that every life — that every line of work and every person working in it, and every concern that those people have — is equally valueless and equally insignificant. </strong> It is, in its way, a statement of purpose: not just the assurance that every person, place, and thing is now or will become food for its rightful devourers, but that those doing the eating also think of it as junk food. </blockquote> These a-holes think it's all a game, and just some numbers on a balance sheet. They are not our friend, and should only be trusted to try to take as much as they can, if they can. </p>
Every Dem running in 2024 should identify these oligarch scumbags, call out their influence over our media and political system, and tell Americans their free ride is over. Our economy may be good, and this country and its people is better off than they were in 2019. But our society still needs to improve more, and remove the cloud of corporatism that hangs over much of America today. </p>
Make those mediocre pricks pay taxes like it's 1975 (or at least 2017) and do more to break up their oligopolies and actively support and/or force competition. Sure, it takes a lot of time, money and effort, but the alternative is to have this country go down the drain into oligarchy for good, and have even more people give up on trying to succeed through legitimate means and hard work. </p>
If we do fall into Third-World Oligarchy, we become much more likely to have even more "disruption". Not just for people with real jobs, but also for the greedhead mediocrities at the top. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhj6Kv1F68Qv6sjeiVWkB681W6dGq8D-y4jLDSBZQFWnl98nowWeXGKCc3vEE_LDEa4bO9qGNhuRktjCC9azqEvpWlw-zTrmdJRzhoEq2eBqyN4eXesYW8uzrpk1XDb8IJ4JKtghe7WcnCATbMFGurk3pcNx_5ZSvCBZ9znMGADEy4VX0wwjT_7jmP4U8h/s500/Guillotine%20pic.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height=500" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="447" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhj6Kv1F68Qv6sjeiVWkB681W6dGq8D-y4jLDSBZQFWnl98nowWeXGKCc3vEE_LDEa4bO9qGNhuRktjCC9azqEvpWlw-zTrmdJRzhoEq2eBqyN4eXesYW8uzrpk1XDb8IJ4JKtghe7WcnCATbMFGurk3pcNx_5ZSvCBZ9znMGADEy4VX0wwjT_7jmP4U8h/s500/Guillotine%20pic.jpg"/></a></div> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3426800777521979578.post-67774378714847130982024-01-27T13:03:00.003-06:002024-01-27T13:05:26.484-06:00Strong GDP with good income and spending growth to end 2023. Keep it ROLLIN for 2024!
At the end of this week, we got two more pieces of data that showed the US economy finished up 2023 in a great place. The first came on Thursday. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">JUST IN: The US economy grew 2.5% in 2023. That was stellar growth for a year when many experts predicted a recession. The economy grew just 1.9% in 2022.<br><br>Here’s a look at GDP by quarter:<br>Q4: 3.3% —> still strong due to robust consumption<br>Q3: 4.9<br>Q2: 2.1<br>Q1: 2.2 <a href="https://t.co/8uBLA1t1rA">pic.twitter.com/8uBLA1t1rA</a></p>— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) <a href="https://twitter.com/byHeatherLong/status/1750512008850460930?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 25, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
And if you're comparing the end of 2022 with the end of 2022, GDP growth was even stronger than that. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Did the US economy grow 2.5% or 3.1% in 2023?<br><br>A: It depends how you calculate it. <br><br>2.5% is the average change in 2023 vs average in 2022.<br>3.1% is the % change from Q4 2022 to Q4 2023.<br><br>The US gov reports both. Both show a 2023 boom and strong consumption. Both are inflation… <a href="https://t.co/RkX2NihqvF">pic.twitter.com/RkX2NihqvF</a></p>— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) <a href="https://twitter.com/byHeatherLong/status/1750521430523945452?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 25, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
When broken down further, <a href=https://econbrowser.com/archives/2024/01/another-solid-gdp-report-2> (hat tip to Econbrowser) </a>is not only the 4 quarters of growth for 2023, but how consistent the growth is in being spread across several sectors, and the consistency of the growth in those sectors. Outside of a slowdown in consumption for Q2, only inventories and trade were factors behind changes in growth levels for 2023. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihZG61nwcyFL7izkzJLmm4G0k9bTUCkKlx3wUgi-nXkakPYAQXf8LQE6DoYbWsf7tx6OM6z80qDTBYDGfRs_4AXO7HKd3GJLSyrLOZx-qYmZwQcu3mMjZ7V6KbkTONINDO1hWUdU4I7-wOton5Rn35pfNmdJx4ttU1ebzNqfWhVXQG4bKyTyj8D82P9CH3/s480/GDP%20Q4%202024%20by%20sector.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="480" data-original-height="655" data-original-width="977" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihZG61nwcyFL7izkzJLmm4G0k9bTUCkKlx3wUgi-nXkakPYAQXf8LQE6DoYbWsf7tx6OM6z80qDTBYDGfRs_4AXO7HKd3GJLSyrLOZx-qYmZwQcu3mMjZ7V6KbkTONINDO1hWUdU4I7-wOton5Rn35pfNmdJx4ttU1ebzNqfWhVXQG4bKyTyj8D82P9CH3/s480/GDP%20Q4%202024%20by%20sector.png"/></a></div> </p>
Then on Friday, we saw that not only did we get more evidence that Americans kept making money and spending more money in December, but also that inflation stayed at the low levels that we saw for most of 2023. </p>>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">🇺🇸Jolly consumers & easing <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/inflation?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#inflation</a> in December🎄<br><br>✅Spending +0.7%<br> ✅Inflation-adj +0.5%<br><br>💵Disposable income +0.3%<br> ✅Inflation-adj +0.1% <br><br>🏦Savings rate 3.7% (-0.4pt)⚠️low & falling<br><br>📉PCE <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/inflation?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#inflation</a><br> 👏Headline: 2.6% y/y (flat)<br> 👏Core: 2.9% y/y (-0.3pt) <a href="https://t.co/ZwlTPd8gvY">pic.twitter.com/ZwlTPd8gvY</a></p>— Gregory Daco (@GregDaco) <a href="https://twitter.com/GregDaco/status/1750877005522915579?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 26, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Using annual core CPI puts you way behind the curve, for 2 reasons. First, annual: even core CPI was 4.6 in the first half of 2023, 3.2 in the second half. Second, known lags in official shelter prices lagging far behind market rents 2/</p>— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) <a href="https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1750876148102230257?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 26, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </p>
My main concern with that report would be the decline in the savings rate, down to 3.7% in December, lowest for any month in 2023. Combined with <a href=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2024-inflation-credit-card-debt-emergency-saving-lending-tree-report/> rising amounts of credit card debt </a> and interest rates staying elevated compared to pre-COVID levels, you hope those debt payments aren't something that kicks out the legs of either income growth or consumer spending in 2024. </p>
Combine that reality of a need to keep consumer spending going, and given that we are seeing economic growth remain strong without a corresponding rise in inflation, this is all the more reason that the Federal Reserve needs to get interest rates back down toward where they were at in 2019 (which is 3% below where they are today). And if central bankers are spooked by 3%+ growth as something that would cause prices to rise again, they're looking in the wrong direction, because it's very clear that 2021's and 2022's inflation was a combination of COVID-era supply disruptions and profiteering. </p>
Things are in a very strong place in America's economy, with disposable incomes rising past inflation and unemployment staying low, and our policy bias should be toward keeping that going as long as possible. </p>
<iframe width="480" height="288" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Wyx2VTDffYA" title="Limp Bizkit - Rollin' (Official Music Video UNCENSORED)" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0