WisDems need to tell the truth on Act 10 repeal - it doesn't raise taxes.

One of the many changes that we will see in Wisconsin with the coming Dem trifecta is the likely return of collective bargaining rights for public sector employees, which were taken away as part of the series of measures that were in 2011's Act 10. It will be ended and resolved by some combination of the Dem-leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court (who agreed to take a case regarding Act 10 in the last week), and the soon-to-be Dem-controlled Wisconsin State Legislature.

And the soon-to-be out-of-power Legislative Republicans in Wisconsin are telling us what they'll try to push out to the public to try to stall WisDems' momentum.

Incoming Senate Minority Leader Julian Bradley, R-New Berlin, said reversing Act 10 will lead to higher property taxes as school districts figure out how to pay for the higher share of employee costs that would again be required.

"The Democrats campaigned on change and affordability, but the only change so far is how fast they forgot about affordability. Repealing Act 10 will cost Wisconsin taxpayers up to $2 billion a year, but the radical left just can’t wait to raise your taxes," he said.

I'll remind you that the "$2 billion" that Bradley is referencing was money taken out of the pockets of teachers, social workers, scientists and other subject matter experts that were working, raising families, and spending money in Wisconsin. And I'll get back to the rest of that talking point about "higher taxes" in a bit.

Let me also give you the take of the future lobbyist for right-wing BS that bailed out of the Legislature after not being able to keep his gerrymander-assisted status.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, who is leaving the state Legislature in January and was part of the Republican majorities that passed Act 10, said he was skeptical Democrats would do a full repeal.

"We'll see if they actually can pass a repeal of Act 10," he said. "I try to be optimistic, but it seems to me like they pulled the wool over people's eyes, and they're not going to realize what happened until Democrats pass a bunch of crazy stuff that no one signed up for."

"If you thought property taxes were high with a 400-year veto, wait until you have that coupled with a bunch of spending on making sure public employees no longer have to pay for their pensions or their health care, and they get double-digit raises," Vos said.

Cute statement, Robbin'. Too bad it's a TOTAL LIE.

The only way a state worker like me is getting a "double-digit raise" is if the repeal of Act 10 somehow required 15 years of higher medical and pension contributions to be clawed back and sent to me. I ain't counting on that or anything close to it. All that would happen is that collective bargaining would be allowed for those benefits in the future as well as discussions about other work conditions. In fact, it's not out of the question that I'd have less money in my pocket if I chose to reunionize, due to union dues (I'll explain later why it'd be worth it to do so anyway).

I would strongly encourage incoming Assembly Speaker Greta Neubauer and future Senate Majority Dianne Hesselbein to remind voters early and often that taxpayer costs do not have to go up when Act 10 goes away. Who pays the benefit costs and how much they pay are open for negotiation, and wages are also subject to agreement. Even with inflation going up by 3-4% due to Trump/GOP's stupid decisions and corporate greed, I'd be pleasantly surprised if my current position's salary went up by that amount (I got a 2% increase last July 1 under the current budget).

I'll also add that even before Act 10, most public employees were paying in to their pensions and their health care, and our health care packages are negotiated as a group already. I'm facing a 6-7% increase in my health care premiums and a $150 increase in my deductible for next year, and while I understand that's probably better than a lot of other people due to the effects of Tax Scam 2.0, it's a lot more than "nothing". And that's not something I anticipate going down for 2028 even if Act 10 is dead.

And it's especially rich for Republicans to talk about higher property taxes, because Wisconsinites have been paying much higher property taxes for schools and other public services with Act 10 in place for the last 15 years. Remember this graph from the Wisconsin Policy Forum?

As the Policy Forum told us last December, the increase in property taxes isn't due to Tony Evers' 400-year veto allowing , but because of Republicans in the Legislature like Robbin' Vos, who refused to use state dollars to pay for those increased resources.

Typically, a portion of the per pupil revenue limit increase is covered by rising state general school aids. Our previous research details the interaction between per pupil revenue limits and property taxes. Nearly every two-year budget over the past two decades has included at least one annual increase in general school aids, a form of aid that is distributed to school districts based on factors including property values, spending, and enrollment. This time, state leaders instead kept the funding for these payments flat, leaving property taxes as the sole means by which school districts collectively could access the allowed $325 per student increase.

School districts can choose to increase their levy by less than the allowed limit. Rising pressure on both revenues and expenditures, however, appears to have prompted many districts to levy at or near the maximum amount. These pressures include rising teacher salaries and inflation, revenue limit increases in recent years that lagged the rate of inflation, and decreased funding associated with declining student enrollment and the expiration of federal pandemic relief funds.

Wait, so the magic bullet of Act 10 didn't solve all of the problems that result from a lack of resources going to our schools to keep up with the costly realities of 2026? And that you can only cut take-home pay once and can't go back to that well again and again because you can't find workers that you need? It's almost like Act 10 was a one-time trick intended to take away worker power and Democratic support and give it to Republicans and corporate donors!

And that Supreme Court of Wisconsin case underscores another reason the GOP's crocodile tears about Act 10 ending are complete BS, as part of the case deals with the fact that public safety and transit union were exempted from those provisions. Republicans allowed the most expensive pension costs of police and fire fighters to continue to be bargained, as part of a political trade Scott Walker made in exchange for the endorsement that cop and fire fighter unions gave to the GOP. Those rising pensions were a main reason that the City of Milwaukee was facing chronic deficits and needed to have a 2% sales tax put in - a sales tax that is specifically earmarked to pay much of those pension costs.

Lastly, I think the disasters that we see in DC have underscored why we need public employees to have union protections. Because you need to allow everyday workers to be honest and independent in their jobs, especially when their bosses are guys like this.

He's not wrong

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— Patrick Fenelon (@patrickfenelon.bsky.social) November 13, 2026 at 7:50 PM

part of the problem with a corrupt administration is that the FAA system probably does need an overhaul! our infrastructure needs reinvestment! but if you give $$$$ to these bozos, they’re just going to award contracts to themselves & their friends. things won’t get fixed, & they’ll get richer!

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— Leah Litman (@leahlitman.bsky.social) November 13, 2026 at 8:20 PM

The Departments of State and Defense both saying "Stop quoting laws to MEN WITH SWORDS" is an affront our constitution, antithetical to a free society, and absolutely horrifying.

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— Corey Rayburn Yung (@coreyryung.bsky.social) November 14, 2026 at 10:42 PM

More than ever, we need people in government who know what they're doing, and to have the protections that allow them to speak freely about problems and be whistleblowers to outside organizations if the missions are being compromised. Instead, we have crooks, donors, and contractors calling the shots in DC, and that often causes more costs and deficiencies than what we had before government workers were disempowered.

What the FAA shutdown demonstrates is that many of what we think of as government failures are really failures involving private contractors that the government has become dependent on. bsky.app/profile/kash...

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— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn.bsky.social) November 15, 2026 at 8:32 AM

WisDems need to be out in front of the Act 10 story NOW, and tell Wisconsinites that the end of Act 10 will only raise costs to everyday taxpayers if lawmakers choose to allow it to do so. And that they aren't going to be the ones that do that, because they will raise state aids to schools and local governments, limit property taxes, and stop the giveaways to businesses and rich people that the WisGOPs have given for years.

If that happens, then property taxes won't be rising anything near what they went up in late 2025 or what they are likely to rise when you get your bills next month. And if Governor Crowley and WisDems in the Legislature do it right, they might even go down. And how would WisGOPs be able to sell voters that WisDems are "overspending liberals who give everything away to unions" when people aren't seeing their taxes go up and they're better able to pay their bills?

INFLATION WATCH heats back up for consumers and businesses in October

It was a big week for INFLATION WATCH, starting with the release of the Consumer Price Index from October.

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in October after rising 0.6 percent in September, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported [Tuesday]....

The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.3 percent in October, as it did in September and August. Indexes that increased over the month include recreation, medical care, motor vehicle insurance, household furnishings and operations, and education. Conversely, the index for used cars and trucks and the index for communication were among the small number of major indexes that decreased in October.

Higher energy prices were a part of this increase in October, but it also included a resurgence of higher prices at the grocery store after a couple of months of near-zero inflation there.

The index for food rose 0.5 percent in October after being unchanged in September. The food at home index increased 0.4 percent over the month. Four of the six major grocery store food group indexes increased in October, while one index decreased. The index for other food at home increased 0.7 percent in October, as the index for snacks rose 1.0 percent. The meats, poultry, fish, and eggs index increased 0.5 percent over the month, as the beef index rose 0.9 percent. The index for fruits and vegetables and the index for dairy and related products each increased 0.6 percent in October.

That seems to reflect that higher producer prices and diesel shipping costs in September were making its way to store shelves (keep that concept in mind, because it'll come up again in a bit).

So what was the increase in year-over-year consumer inflation? The October report did not say, because of the US government shutdown that was going on during the previous October.

BLS did not collect survey data for October 2025 because of a lapse in appropriations. For most CPI series, BLS could not publish October 2025 indexes. As a result, BLS cannot publish 12-month percent changes for October 2026 for indexes where October 2025 data are unavailable.

Lucky break for the Trump folks on that one, eh? However, we still have a pretty good idea about the number, because if we look at the numbers since monthly CPI figures returned in December 2025, consumer prices are up somewhere between 3.9% and 4.0%.

The CPI report also leads to information on real wages for the month, to supplement what came out of last Friday’s jobs report. The 0.4% increase in consumer prices in October was the same as the 0.4% increase in average hourly wages for last month, meaning that October was the 7th of the last 9 months that average hourly wages did not increase.

None of this is good for consumer spending prospects as we head into the Holiday shopping season, and it doesn't seem like it'll change any time soon, as producer prices also kept rising last month.

US wholesale prices surged to a four-year high in October as broad, sticky inflation across manufacturing and supply chains reinforced expectations that the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates by 25 basis points next month.

The Producer Price Index for final demand, which measures the prices that factories, farmers, and producers charge for their finished goods and services, rose 6.5% last month, the largest increase since the aftermath of the pandemic when prices jumped 7.4% in 2022. Expectations were for the wholesale price index to rise 6.6%.

On a core basis, excluding food, energy, and trade services, PPI rose 4.9% in October, compared with 5% in September, indicating that wholesale cost pressures persisted beyond the energy sector into other segments of the economy….

Over 60% of the total price increase for physical goods came from everyday manufactured products, rather than from volatile categories like food or energy, though food prices jumped 1.3%. Energy prices dipped slightly by 0.1%, but still remained elevated.

It’s that last part about "everyday manufactured products" that’s alarming, and when I look at the official PPI report, I see sizable October increases in electronics, iron and steel scrap, and industrial chemicals, auto parts and trailers, and trucks transporting freight. Those are big inputs and costs that will find their way into the sticker price consumers are going to pay in the future.

In addition to the increases in PPI at the end point, prices jumped in the step before the end point, which also portends higher prices for November and likely December.

Prices for processed goods for intermediate demand advanced 0.4 percent in October, the third consecutive rise. Leading the October increase, the index for processed materials less foods and energy moved up 0.9 percent. Prices for processed foods and feeds advanced 1.0 percent. In contrast, the index for processed energy goods declined 1.6 percent. For the 12 months ended in October, prices for processed goods for intermediate demand increased 14.6 percent, the largest 12-month rise since jumping 17.2 percent in July 2022.

The bond markets have reacted to these inflation numbers by reversing much of the decline in interest rates that happened throughout October. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note gained nearly 30 basis points this week, and now is back at 5.15%.

I read all this, and I don't see higher inflation rates ending just because gas prices are making their seasonally-influenced retreat from October's high levels. There’s too much price pressure in the pipeline for products that’ll cost Americans more in the next few months. If wage increases continue to fall short of inflation and interest rates stay high, I don't see consumers being much happier for the rest of this year, even if pump prices have a 3 instead of a 4 as the first digit.

Big shifts in Wis voting continued in 2026, giving WisDems upper hand for now and future

If you just look at the red-blue county-level map of Wisconsin’s results in last week’s elections, and had no idea about population patterns of our state, you might think Republicans dominate here.

If you’re a dope, you might be confused as to why Democrats are going to run all parts of Wisconsin’s government when election results look like this. But it’s because of a simple rule - land doesn’t vote, people do.

And the people of Wisconsin are voting differently in this Trumpian era. Craig Gilbert went over the swings in our gubernatorial elections between 2014 and 2026 in today's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, starting with the 15 counties that cast the most votes in Wisconsin’s election last month.

This a list that includes the blue bastions of Milwaukee and Dane, the traditionally Republican “WOW” counties outside Milwaukee, the purple “BOW” counties of Brown, Outagamie and Winnebago, and a mix of others from blue La Crosse and Eau Claire in the west to purple Kenosha and Racine in the south to red Marathon in the north.

Collectively, Republican Gov. Scott Walker won these 15 counties by just under a point in 2014. Then Democrat Tony Evers won them by 9 points against Walker in 2018. Then Evers won them by 14 points against Tim Michels in 2022. And in this last election, Democrat David Crowley won them by 20 points against Tiffany.

That is a 21-point swing in the past three midterms, much bigger than the statewide swing of 14 points. Because these counties account for almost two-thirds of the Wisconsin electorate, the impact of this shift has been massive. These top 15 counties produced a net Democratic gain of almost 360,000 votes between 2014 and 2026.

Which means that Republican gains in rural counties that have happened in the Trump era are dwarfed by the Dem gains in the places most Wisconsinites live in.

….Republican Walker won the state’s smallest 40 counties in 2014 by a combined 11 points. Republican Tiffany won them in 2026 by even more – roughly 15 points. But these gains were less dramatic than the Democrats’ gains in big counties. And they involved a much smaller slice of the electorate. As a result, these 40 small counties produced a net gain for the GOP of about 35,000 votes between 2014 and 2026.

Measured this way, the Republican gains in small counties over the past three midterms have had one-tenth the electoral impact of the Democratic gains in big counties.

Oh? So actively being an anti-intellectual, anti-diversity and anti-city party isn’t working out for WisGOPs at the statewide level?

When you look at a map showing who will represent the state's 99 Assembly districts and 33 Senate districts, you will see some clear patterns.

Among other findings:

· Milwaukee County will now be almost completely represented by Democrats (The City of Franklin will have a GOP Assembly rep, but a Dem Senator).

· There is not one Republican state senator in almost all of the Madison media market.

· Districts that include cities and closest suburbs of Appleton, Oshkosh, Neenah and Green Bay are all blue.

· All but one college town with a 4-year UW campus will be represented by Democrats in the Assembly (Platteville is the exception).

Dan Shafer's Recombobulation Area also pointed me to Marquette professor John Johnson’s blog, which includes the Governor election's results in all 99 Legislative districts in Wisconsin. Johnson’s data shows that David Crowley won 54 in the Governor’s election, and 53 of those are now going to be represented by Democrats in the Assembly, while all 45 districts won by Tom Tiffany will be represented by Republicans.

The one exception? A district in the City of Waukesha where the Republican candidate won by 2.4% while Crowley was winning the district by 1.6%. Tony Evers lost that district by 17.8% in 2018, but cut that deficit to 6.6% in 2022. Seems like a place WisDems should make a note of, and target for the future.

And if the new-majority Dems in the Legislature choose to redraw the Congressional maps in this state (as they have hinted at doing), they should consider how votes are swinging in this state. More urban and educated areas seems to be increasingly Democratic, and understanding that may mean a small tweak could go a long way toward making some districts more competitive, as other areas in the state become less competitive.

Personally, I’d recommend a Congressional map of 2 solid Dem seats, 4 swingy seats, and 2 solid GOP seats. I think some of the Dems' gains in the last 8 years is due to the WisGOP gerrymandering and their associated arrogance, where Robbin' Vos and company felt they could ignore what the people wanted. So I tried drawing my own 2-4-2 map using Dave’s Redistricting, and here’s what I got, with Tony Evers’ 3-point win in 2022 as the base to draw the map out of.

And here's how these newly drawn districts would have voted in 2022's Governor's race (this program doesn't have 2026's numbers in there yet).

Sure, the 5th Congressional district was 55-44 GOP with the 2022 results. But I’ll add that David Crowley reached new highs for Dems in both the Milwaukee County suburbs and the WOW Counties, and that reality, combined with stretching the 5th into eastern Dane County, means much of the territory in this redrawn district is trending towards Democrats. I bet that 55-44 was more like 52-47 or 51-48 GOP on November 3, which would turn WI-5 into a fourth competitive district for 2028.

Now compare that with the current Congressional map from that same 2022 vote.

This current map just saw districts 1 and 3 flip to having Dem Representatives in an election where David Crowley won by 5% more than the election results shown here. Now combine that fact with districts 1,3, 5 and 8 being moved a few more points toward Dems with new maps, and you've got a combination of a relatively fair map in a neutral year with Dems being in great shape to hold 5 or 6 seats in 2028 if results are near 2026's.

Yes, I understand that one election does not mean a permanent realignment - just look at the GOPs who thought that Trump’s gains with Latinos and young bros in 2024 was something that would last into 2026. But the trends over the last dozen years in Wisconsin also cannot be ignored, where Republicans are losing the most populated and educated areas while making gains in lower-density, lower-educated places. That means Dems should have the advantage when it comes to statewide elections in the coming years.

Data centers boom while homebuilding, other construction decline in America

I saw this report hit last week, and it tells me a lot about how off-kilter a lot of our economy is these days.

It's in the monthly construction report that the Census Bureau puts out, and September's numbers were released last week. On the top level, the numbers were bad enough.

Construction spending during September 2026 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2,186.1 billion, 1.9 percent (±0.7 percent) below the revised August estimate of $2,227.4 billion. The September figure is 2.7 percent (±1.5 percent) below the September 2025 estimate of $2,245.8 billion. During the first nine months of this year, construction spending amounted to $1,649.6 billion, 2.9 percent (±1.0 percent) below the $1,698.6 billion for the same period in 2025.

Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,639.3 billion, 2.4 percent (±0.5 percent) below the revised August estimate of $1,680.3 billion. Residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $848.8 billion in September, 5.5 percent (±1.3 percent) below the revised August estimate of $898.0 billion. Nonresidential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $790.6 billion in September, 1.1 percent (±0.5 percent) above the revised August estimate of $782.3 billion.

Spending in nonresidential construction was up 1.8% in Sept 2026 vs Sept 2025, but residential construction was down a whopping 8.8% over the same 12 months.

Then dig into the private construction numbers more, and you'll see that the "nonresidential" growth is heavily slanted into one type of building in particular - data centers.

In fact, take out data centers, and the value of construction projects put in place has significantly dropped in the last two years, even as prices have continued to rise.

Then add in the fact that debt used to construct these data centers has been a reason behind rising interest rates in 2026, due to the increasing amount of bonds thrown out on the markets, and it sure seems like data center buildouts are crowding out other forms of construction.

Doesn't seem like a sustainable way to run an economy, does it? Seems like we are well overdue to rebalance things when it comes to what we're building in this country.

A very good jobs report and better revisions means things might not be as bad for US workers.

After a massive Dem win where economic concerns and inequality played a major role, Friday's US jobs report offered data that seemed to conflict with what the voters were saying.

Job growth surpassed expectations in October, new data showed Friday, with the US economy adding 165,000 jobs.

The unemployment rate fell to 4.1% from 4.2%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Job growth in the previous two months was stronger than initially reported, with a total of 84,000 jobs added: August was revised upwards by 53,000 to 186,000; and September gains totaled 60,000, up from 29,000.

This means that job growth over the last 3 months is now near 2-year highs, with a clear upswing in the last couple of months.

There also was a positive move in average hourly wages, as the originally reported 0.1% increase for hourly wages in September got revised up to 0.3%, and October had another increase of 0.4%. Which means nominal hourly wages are now at their best 3-month growth rate in more than a year.

So if you think the Bureau of Labor Statistics were rigging these numbers to make Trump look good, these revisions indicate their timing sure sucks about it. Not that I think it would have made a big difference in Tuesday's results (costs were still generally rising higher than wages in these months), but I'll be interested to see if this makes consumer spending a bit more resilient than we thought it would be as 2026 ends.

The jobs report also featured a rebound in some key sectors, with the top two sectors listed here seeing especially strong gains in health care and consulting services.

There's also the gain of 19,000 manfuacturing jobs, which had been hinted at in recent reports from ISM as well as other data, and it continues an upswing in manufacturing jobs that started a few months ago after multiple years of losses.

The drop in construction jobs may just be a one-month blip after that sector has boomed in recent years. But it's worth keeping an eye on, given that overall US construction spending dropped by 1.9% in September, and residential construction dropped by 5.5%. So are higher interest rates and crowding out that data centers are causing starting to show up in a lack of home-building?

I'm not sure if this October report is indicative of the AI Bubble at its peak, given how the NASDAQ has fallen nearly 11% in the last month, and the major voter backlash against tech businesses and the speed of buildouts in the recent midterms. Or is this indicative that businesses finally have to hire after reaping the benefits and higher profits from significant worker productivity gains over the last few years?

I don't see these better jobs number as showing that we have had some kind of boom in the overall US economy, and the typical American still is struggling to pay increasingly expensive bills. But the lack of layoffs and increased output certainly means the US is not in recession, and it won't be until we see consumer spending slow down and/or more people start filing for unemployment.

Wall Street euphoria from Dem win lasts 1 day, then reality sets back in

The day after Democrats whupped up on Republicans in Tuesday’s elections and took over both houses of Congress, the US stock market took off, seemingly happy about the change in power.

Stocks ripped higher on Wednesday as a decisive victory by Democrats in the U.S. midterm elections — and President Donald Trump’s acceptance of the results — removed political uncertainty risk hanging over Wall Street.

Democrats won majorities in both the House of Representatives and Senate, and scored victories in key gubernatorial races like Texas. The Democrats will now be a check on the policies of Trump, who’s enacted business-friendly tax cuts, while also pursuing tariffs and a war in Iran that’s boosted inflation.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1,569.40 points, or 3.03%, to close at 53,356.12. The 30-stock index moved back above 53,000 for the first time since Sept. 8 and posted its best day since April 9, 2025, when Trump announced a pause on his so-called reciprocal tariffs. The S&P 500 gained 1.58% to end at 7,688.62, while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.44% to 25,736.51.

Stocks extended their gains after U.S. crude oil fell more than 8% as Vice President JD Vance blamed the Iran war for the election losses the Republican party suffered Tuesday. Brent futures traded more than 8% lower as well.

“There’s just going to be even more pressure to end the war,” said Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at One Point BFG Wealth Partners. “The American people have obviously expressed their displeasure with inflation and the price of gasoline, amongst other things, and maybe this just pushes for an end to it. We’ll have to see.”

I don’t see a lot of actual economic reasons given for that big rally, do you? Just a lot of hopes for what the future may hold and assuming the results will work out.

Reality sunk back in today, and all the “relief” from Wednesday went away.

US stocks plunged on Thursday as AI and chip stocks sold off, erasing the gains from Wednesday's post-election rally.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) tumbled 3.4%, or more than 1,800 points. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell 4.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) dropped 5.5%, with the tech-heavy index closing in correction territory.

The PHLX Semiconductor index (^SOX) plummeted more than 10% as Nvidia (NVDA), Micron (MU), and other chip names sank. Wall Street unloaded this year's AI winners, while large-cap tech stocks saw the worst day since the COVID-19 pandemic sell-off.

So you’re saying the AI Bubble is still running on empty after the election, just like it was before it?

Yeah, things are still not good in the real world. Same goes for the inflation situation. Sure, gas prices are down from where they were a couple of weeks ago, and the recent drop in oil prices likely means our national average will drop below $4 a gallon for the first time since July. But they’re still 33% above where it was a year ago, and well above any November price we’ve seen in the last 4 years.

Higher shipping and input costs are still working their way through the supply chain, given that September had the largest increase in Producer Prices in 4 ½ years. Those higher prices will likely make their way to store shelves in October and November, while we find out on Friday if year-over-year hourly wage growth continues at 3%, or even goes below that awful level.

And this week, we got more evidence that costs kept going up at a rapid pace with the release of the ISM manufacturing and the ISM services indexes. For example, here’s what the report mentioned about prices for service firms.

“The Prices Index registered above 70 percent for the seventh time in eight months; the reading of 73 percent in October is 1 percentage point below September’s figure of 74 percent. The index has exceeded 60 percent for 23 straight months, and its 12-month average increased by 0.2 percentage point to 69.2 percent, the highest since April 2023.”

And here’s what manufacturers were saying last month regarding their input costs.

The ISM® Prices Index registered 75.2 percent in October, 2.7 percentage points lower than the 77.9 percent reported in September; this reading also indicates that raw materials prices increased for the 25th straight month. Five of the six largest manufacturing industries — Machinery; Computer & Electronic Products; Chemical Products; Transportation Equipment; and Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products — reported price increases in October. “The Prices Index reading is still being driven by (1) increases in steel and aluminum prices that impact the entire value chain, (2) tariffs applied to many imported goods and (3) increases in petroleum-based products as a result of the Middle East conflict. Higher prices were reported by 53.1 percent of respondents in October, down 5.5 percentage points from September’s 58.6 percent,” says Spence. A Prices Index above 52.8 percent, over time, is generally consistent with an increase in the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Producer Price Index for Intermediate Materials.

In October, the 16 industries that reported paying increased prices for raw materials, in order, are: Furniture & Related Products; Printing & Related Support Activities; Fabricated Metal Products; Nonmetallic Mineral Products; Electrical Equipment, Appliances & Components; Machinery; Paper Products; Textile Mills; Wood Products; Miscellaneous Manufacturing; Computer & Electronic Products; Primary Metals; Chemical Products; Plastics & Rubber Products; Transportation Equipment; and Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products. No industries reported paying decreased prices for raw materials in October.

Woof.

Sure, the production side of things kept moving along at a strong pace in October, and jobless claims remain below 200,000 a week. But the continued inflationary cycle and looming comedown from AI overproduction is a continuing cloud. With the stock market resuming its one-month slide on Thursday's plummet, it reflects the reality that this week's Democratic victory isn't going to immediate fix everything that got screwed up under Trump/GOP in the last 2 years.

Crowley, Dems gain big in higher-populated and educated parts of Wisconsin. Now they will run it all

Well, how was YOUR Election Night?

Decision Desk HQ projects David Crowley wins the WI Governor General Election #DecisionMade: 10:20 PM EST Follow live results here: votes.decisiondeskhq.com/races/2026-1...

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— Decision Desk HQ (@decisiondeskhq.bsky.social) November 3, 2026 at 9:21 PM

BREW WAVE: Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley won the race for governor, Democrats picked up 11 seats in the state legislature, and the first Democratic trifecta in a generation is coming in 2027. www.therecombobulationarea.com/p/brew-wave-...

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— Dan Shafer (@danshafer.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 3:41 PM

And now we can move this state into the 2020s...and the 2010s for that matter.

As I was looking at the results coming in, it was obvious at an early time that Crowley was going to win, especially as the larger-population counties were showing shifts toward Dems (more on that in a second). But I also was looking at a lot of the early county-level results, and a lot of outstate Wisconsin wasn't seeing its margins change much at all from 2022, when Tony Evers won by 3.4%.

Some of this may have been connected to Tiffany having an advantage as a Congressman that represented almost all of area code 715 in the state. But there's a flip side to that part, which is that the more urbanized and educated parts of the state swung hard towards Crowley. I'll quote this part of my preview of the Governor's race from earlier this week.

Crowley should hope to get at least 80% in the City of Milwaukee, and I wonder if he can use his hometown status to crank up the turnout in the City so its vote share gets back toward that 8% in 2018 vs the 6.5% it was at in 2025. Crowley continuing the Dems' strength in the Milwaukee County suburbs is also a must, and doing so would likely help Dems downticket, as two of the Assembly seats most likely to flip to Democrats on Tuesday are in Milwaukee County. Since Crowley is the County Executive, it puts an extra layer of interest on those suburban results - does he overperform because he's liked and better known than Tiffany, or underperform as the known quantity? I think the answer will be "overperform", but let's see for sure on Tuesday.

And the City and the burbs in the 414 turned out bigtime for the Milwaukee County Executive last night. Not only did the City of Milwaukee grab a larger share of the electorate than it had in either the 2022 election or the 2025 Supreme Court election, but he won a higher percentage of the votes in the City and County than Susan Crawford won by in her double-digit blowout in 2025.

Maybe it had something to do with the Tiffany campaign and his oligarch supporters running a steady stream of gross, racist, anti-Milwaukee ads? It sure seems like the 414 struck back at those lowlifes in a big way on Election Night.

Crowley continued that Dem overperformance in the Republican-leaning WOW Counties in the Milwaukee suburbs. nearly matching Crawford's percentage from 2025, and doing 3% better than both Evers in 2022 and Kamala Harris in 2024 (when the WOW was the only part of Wisconsin where Harris improved from 2020).

I made a comment on my preview about Crowley winning Dane County by 200,000 votes on Tuesday. Bold number, but I ended being close, as Crowley ended up with more than 250,000 votes in Dane County while Tiffany had less than 61,000. That's an increased margin in Madison's county by more than 15,000 compared to Evers in 2022, with Crowley getting to the 80% mark.

Pour your misery down on me, WisGOP.

There were only four counties that Crowley flipped last night compared to what Evers won in 2022, but they were all higher-population ones that included cities like Green Bay, Oshkosh, Racine and Kenosha. In addition, Crowley expanded on Evers' wins in 3 counties that have UW campuses and were located in the 3rd Congressional District (which will now be represented by Dem Rebecca Cooke instead of Small-D Van Orden).

Margins of Dem victory, 2022 vs 2026
Eau Claire Co.
2022 - Evers by 17
2026 - Crowley by 23

La Crosse Co.
Evers by 18
Crowley by 21

Portage Co.
Evers by 8
Crowley by 12

Put it together, and Crowley pulled Crawford-like margins in the Fox Valley's BOW Counties, as well as ending up over 50% in Racine and Kenosha Counties. Crowley ended up outperforming Evers outstate by 2% almost entirely due to that strong performance in the college counties, and was nearly 5% better than Harris vs Trump.

So that's how David Crowley got a win of more than 8 points statewide, and helped Dems flip both houses of the Legislature. GOPs got drilled in any area of the state that has any decent amount of People of Color or with people that didn't peak at age 18 and learned stuff beyond high school. And now we get to see our state evolve and finally take the last step to move ourselves out of the Walker/Vos era.

This is gonna be fun. LET'S FUCKING GO!