Ten minutes ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Producer Price Index numbers for April 2022 – this is, of course, a month in arrears. The print was 11% meaning the cost of final demand goods from producers was up 11% when compared to April 2021.
These are Jimmy Carter numbers.
This is the fifth month in a row in which the annualized increase was double digits — again, when compared to a year earlier. Continue reading
In the changing world in which we live, even the most Old School manufacturing companies are finding themselves having to change their ways to find, hire, and retain workers.
John Deere makes farm and construction equipment and its work force is unionized under the United Auto Workers.
Production lines at Deere are hard places to work and it takes a toll on a woman’s/man’s body.
The UAW has had a hard time convincing Deere management to increase wages and the UAW would admit that for the last 20-30 years they had their asses handed to them in every contract negotiation.
Meanwhile, the company has done well with a CEO making $16,000,000, a 160% increase when compared to 2019. This is 220X the average worker at Deere.
“My name is John May and I’m doing good. I’m the Chairman of the Board of Directors and the CEO of John Deere. Let’s play 36?”
I think everyone in the United States understands we have entered a period of increasing prices — inflation. Nobody thinks it is actually going to be transitory.
Even the Biden admin says it’s going to be here through the end of 2023 after suggesting it would magically disappear by the end of 2021. Nay, not so.
Those who are students of the economy will fairly point at the extraordinarily naïve energy policy actions of the Biden admin as a trigger point or at least a milestone.
Nobody has missed that the price of gasoline has doubled since Joe Biden took office.
Glendale, California
It is very easy to understand gasoline pricing — you drive up to the pump, study the price of different grades of gasoline, insert your card, and pump your gas.
[The price of gas taken together with the price of groceries makes one as intimately knowledgeable of the state of inflation in America as a Nobel Laureate economist.]
Today, when you fill up it costs about twice what it did when Joe Biden was elected President.
Glendale, California — I have a 24-gallon tank. Do the bloody math. Ouch!
But, what really controls the price of gasoline? Is it crude oil prices? Continue reading
When a politician needs to counter some terrible narrative as it relates to behavior or policy what does he/she do?
They find some EXPERTS to pimp out to support their outrageous behavior or policy.
You will recall during the last days of the 2020 election, candidate Joe Biden was confronted by the allegation that a laptop owned by his son — in the possession of the FBI for a year and supposedly being “investigated” — was filled with damaging information.
Joe had famously asserted that he had had nothing to do with his nefarious son’s business dealings with amongst others, the sovereign nation of China. The information on the laptop showed this was a lie of gargantuan proportions and that not only was he actively involved, but he was the beneficiary of “10% for the Big Guy.”
The information on the laptop began to leak out and showed a drug crazed Hunter Biden engaged in various sorts of churlish and illegal behavior.
What did candidate Joe Biden do? He pimped some EXPERTS. You can read the contemporaneous article here:
Now, in a move that has been proven a lie and incredibly cynical candidate Joe Biden rounded up “50 former intelligence officials” who warned the naive, gullible, and callow American public that the laptop, the information on the laptop, and Joe’s balding forehead were “signs of a Russian disinformation operation.” Continue reading
Sec Transportation Pete Buttigieg, a chap who could not figure out how to fix potholes as Mayor of South Bend, Indiana is on maternity leave and asked me to ‘splain the supply chain thing to y’all.
“Chasten, is that Supply or Chain?” “Does it make any difference, Pete?”
Here goes: Continue reading
Presidents are always puffing up and beating their chests about all the jobs they’ve created by their general goodness, wisdom, and pluck.
Here’s the thing — we don’t need any more jobs in the short term. We have plenty of jobs.
We need folks to fill jobs. Let me show you why I think this:
1. The US Bureau of Labor Statistic publishes a nifty monthly report called the JOLTs report — Job Openings and Labor Turnover. Catchy, eh?
It always seems to be a little behind the times, because the most recent one was published on 12 October and it had the August 2021 numbers.
2. The report provides information on:
The number of open jobs;
The number of hires;
The number of folks who have quit their jobs; and,
The number of folks who have been involuntarily laid off, discharged, or “other” separations. Continue reading
I am a little fixated on inflation these days. I look at modestly obscure sources of data to try to track the old bitch so when I read an article on average apartment rents in tech city markets, I had to bring it to your attention.
Let me cut to the chase.
1. Rents went down a little during the pandemic. The general sense is that rents went down about 5% nationwide.
2. With the advent of the vaccine, rents began to turn around and climb upward as folks began to return to offices and the migration to tech meccas resurged, and folks began to quit jobs to get better jobs (and better apartments).
Rents are up 25% in Austin By God Texas. Hello, America, can you say INFLATION?
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