Category Archives: Markets

Up, Up, and Away

Posted on by Leave a comment
Space X Launch

I have not held back on my feelings for Elon Musk. But his persona and his work for the Trump administration notwithstanding, I will concede that he is the greatest marketer since P. T. Barnum. Barnum was a 19th century showman, self-made entrepreneur, and co-founder of the Barnum & Bailey Circus. He is often credited for coining the phrase, “There’s a sucker born every minute” although there is no evidence that he actually said it. Elon Mush might have been able to sell shares in his company, SpaceX (Ticker: SPCX), to Barnum. He did manage to sell shares to millions of retail investors.

Read more

Trump’s Economy

Posted on by Leave a comment

The charts above are certainly things Donald Trump did not want to see. Unemployment rate up. Total employment down. They come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics‘ report on employment in the United States for August. Just last month the July report, showing a slowing economy, led Trump to fire BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer. I wrote a few weeks ago that it was a case of shooting the messenger. Trump falsely claimed downward revisions in the August report were “rigged” to make Republicans look bad. BLS revisions are routine and based on updated employer data. It would be nearly impossible to “rig.”

Just 22,000 nonfarm payroll jobs were added in August. That was below expectations and continued the summer slowdown. The Unemployment Rate rose slightly to 4.3%, up from 4.2% in July. Long-Term Unemployment held steady at 1.93 million, now representing over 25% of all unemployed individuals.

Read more

The Trump Recession

Posted on by Leave a comment

The Trump Recession is upon us. Not officially, that could take months. But the handwriting is on the wall. Just as clear as it was one year ago when every creditable economist warned Donald Trump’s plans for trade tariffs and government layoffs would knock the Goldilocks economy of Joe Biden off its feet. Seventy-seven million voters didn’t believe it. Or didn’t care. Now they can care. Or not. It’s hard to tell.

The latest GDP report shows that the U.S. economy contracted by 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025, marking a sharp downturn from the 2.4% growth in the final quarter of 2024. This decline was largely driven by a surge in imports ahead of Trump’s newly announced tariffs, which widened the trade deficit and negatively impacted GDP calculations.

Read more

Here We Go Again

Posted on by Leave a comment

It was about 3:00am the day after the election in 2016 when I came to the conclusion that Donald Trump would win, beating Hillary Clinton. This time, I knew it at midnight.

Read more

It’s Still the Economy, Stupid

Posted on by One comment

One thing the political polls agree on is the number one concern on the minds of voters. It’s the economy. It is ALWAYS the economy.

The problem, at least for Vice President Harris, is that what voters call the economy is not what economists call the economy. What voters mean when they say economy is prices as in, the price of a gallon of gasoline, the price of a bottle of milk, the price of a dozen eggs. Those prices are up. And as is usual, the incumbent gets the blame.

Read more

Boeing Blows Another One

Posted on by Leave a comment

Boeing’s Starliner capsule is seen docked to the International Space Station in this zoomed-in view of an image captured by Maxar Technologies’ WorldView-3 satellite on June 7, 2024. (Image credit: Maxar Technologies via NASA)

Update Sept 7, 2024

The Starliner capsule returned to Earth safely from the International Space Station last night, without the two astronauts it took up there in June. Boeing and NASA engineers will review the vehicle’s performance on reentry as they consider the future of the program.

Two astronauts who flew to the International Space Station on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft will return to Earth next year on a SpaceX “Crew Dragon” vehicle, their planned eight-day test flight turned into a two-thirds of a year ordeal. It is yet another of a long list of failures by the once venerated aerospace company in recent years.

Read more

Tids and Bits

Posted on by One comment

Thirty years. Ten billion dollars. Launching on Christmas morning, the Webb telescope is finally off the earth and on its way to a point in space one million miles away where it will point its eighteen gold-plated mirrors into deep space, hoping to look back in time to the beginning of the universe. The Webb is far more sensitive, especially at the low infrared radiation frequencies than the Hubble Space Telescope. It is hoped it will succeed and surpass that amazing instrument to study the formation of the universe and the most distant worlds. It will take about six months to maneuver into position and be calibrated, ready for its first observations. Bon Voyage Webb.

Read more
« Older Entries