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US economy






2024oct28    US economy by the electorate        

… most Americans are not entranced by statistics [in other words small-minded economically]. They already have jobs and they don’t own a lot of stocks. They experience the economy primarily through their trips to the gas station and the grocery store, where they notice that prices are still far higher than they were four years ago. Being ordinary human beings rather than economists, they do not notice that inflation (the rate of change of prices) has declined to near the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target. Nor do they consider that wages have risen about as much as prices, or that the economy was hit by a shock of unprecedented strength and complexity by the pandemic. And so Harris knows that any attempt to convince voters that the economy is actually doing quite well will be met with incredulity.  https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4956904-the-biden-harris-economic-record-is-much-better-than-critics-claim/

2024sep19    federal-funds rate        

Powell tried to strike a balance on Wednesday between signaling concern about the economy and complacency about those risks to employment. “It bears watching, and we’re watching,” he said. “There is thinking that the time to support the labor market is when it’s strong, and not when you begin to see the layoffs.”   Over the last two weeks, more former Fed officials had urged the Fed to start with a larger cut to better balance the risks facing the economy even though public comments from some of Powell’s colleagues had implied they were more comfortable leading off with a smaller cut. Powell has prioritized consensus building, reflected in a string of 17 meetings with no dissenting votes that came to an end on Wednesday.     “I didn’t know whether he would be able to get the committee on board, and he did,” said Misra. “So it also tells you the power he has over the committee.”  https://www.wsj.com/economy/central-banking/big-rate-cut-forces-fed-to-contend-with-new-obstacles-0bc63c6a?mod=hp_lead_pos8 


2024sep17    US debt       
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/federal-debt-deficit-trump-harris-5a0d30d2?mod=hp_lead_pos7

2024sep11    inflation lessens further      But some prices continue to rise. https://apnews.com/article/inflation-prices-interest-rates-economy-federal-reserve-bb1f4cfeede550c6c82fd78e2ea537a5?user_email=9a18118e64ac886183a1f61de74720d43b1343700b8a12e015ddf73957378e06&utm_medium=APNews_Alerts&utm_source=Sailthru_AP&utm_campaign=NewsAlert_Sep11_2024_09:12AM&utm_term=AP%20News%20Alerts  



—::—   intro test 

an objective report card for the US 
 H2o likes participating in the CURRENTLY GREAT United States opportunity/challeng
https-//www.cnn.com/videos/us/2024/01/07/fareeds-take-america-problems-gps-vpx.cnn  


2024sep10    GDP components       https://manage.kmail-lists.com/subscriptions/web-view?a=SH8aQb&c=01HNNHNDND2X0H22B7RXNNM8VD&k=a2d3986886ac3d927d14e95f53b80a7d&m=01J7CBFDF0YDQMB6YWACJHGW3Y&r=3faGszkh

2024aug27    US nuclear electricity is back        When Michigan mothballed the Palisades nuclear power plant in 2022, the facility looked like a perfect relic from nuclear power’s 1970s heyday. Two years later, amid surging demand for electricity and new investment in green energy, the federal government and state of Michigan are spending nearly $2 billion to reopen it and make Palisades the first decommissioned nuclear plant anywhere to be put back to work.  https://10point.cmail20.com/t/d-e-eklqjy-djydktlltk-r/

2024jun11.   U.S. economy leads world.      The global economy is in better shape than it was at the start of the year, thanks largely to the performance of the United States, the World Bank said in its latest forecast Tuesday. But the sunnier outlook could cloud over if major central banks — including the Federal Reserve — keep interest rates at elevated levels.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/06/11/world-bank-us-economy/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3df9313%2F6668755865c2ec62c9563447%2F598b051fae7e8a68162a1429%2F27%2F54%2F6668755865c2ec62c9563447

2024july03.   world rankings.      https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by-country/

Contents part 1 


(in key-word terms -- search page for key-word interest)
AI
autos
climate
communications
corporate debt
deficits
education
employment  (unemployment)  -- strikes  --  autos -- Fed
energy --climate change coal
exploration
GDP
government shutdown
housing
immigration
inflation  --  recession
ISS -- International Space Station
Medicare
oil
poverty -- foreign aid 
sentiment -- IRS
shipping
spending
taxes
wages  --  jobs  
well-being




2024sep06.   US jobs are #1         https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/09/06/august-jobs-unemployment-labor-market/?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere&location=alert


2024jun26.   US recessions.    


2024july25..   real GDP.        https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/25/business/economy/us-gdp-economy-inflation.html

U.S. economy grew 2.8% in second quarter, a robust unexpected strengthening.        The U.S. economy grew at a surprisingly robust 2.8 percent annualized rate in the second quarter, capping two years of solid expansion, despite some signs of softening.    Gross domestic product for the quarter ending in June was double the 1.4 percent reading in the previous quarter, but reflects a general cool-down from last year’s brisk pace, according to Commerce Department data released Thursday morning.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/07/25/gdp-q2-economy/        The general cooldown is necessary to tame inflation while still creating jobs.

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic output, was much stronger in the second quarter than economists had predicted. The GDP report showed that businesses are continuing to invest and that consumers are still opening their wallets. That’s key, because consumer spending is America’s economic engine, accounting for about two-thirds of US economic output.    As the economy continued to expand from April through June, inflation resumed a downward trend and seems to be on track to slowing further toward the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.    America’s economy is about to stick what’s called a “soft landing,” which is when inflation returns to the Fed’s target without a recession — a feat that’s only happened once, during the 1990s, according to some economists.    The latest GDP report showed that a key gauge of consumer demand picked up in the second quarter to an annual rate of 2.9%, matching the rate in the fourth quarter of 2023 for the strongest pace in two years. A measure of business investment also strengthened in the April-through-June period.    The current health of the American economy shows that the Fed, with Jerome Powell at the helm as chair, has successfully handled inflation so far, with the finish line coming into clear view. The Fed beginning to cut interest rates indicates that central bank officials feel confident that inflation is under control just enough.    …. the economy has so far avoided a recession. Last year, the resilience of the US consumer shocked economists who widely expected an economic downturn to ensue.  https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/economy/us-economy-gdp-second-quarter/index.html

2024jun26.   recovering counties.    America’s so-called “left behind” counties — the once-great manufacturing centers and other distressed places that struggled mightily at the start of this century — have staged a remarkable comeback. In the last three years, they added jobs and new businesses at their fastest pace since Bill Clinton was president.    The turnaround has shocked experts. “This is the kind of thing that we couldn’t have even dreamed about five or six years ago,” said John Lettieri, the president of the Economic Innovation Group, a think tank that studies economic distress in the U.S. His group is releasing a report today that details the recovery of left-behind counties.    Those counties span the nation but are largely concentrated in the Southeast and Midwest. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain how they defied recent trends — including a particularly grim stretch under Donald Trump — to rebound so strongly from the pandemic recession. I’ll also show the one indicator that helps explain why voters there might not reward President Biden for the good news that has happened on his watch.  https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20240708&instance_id=128185&isViewInBrowser=true&nl=the-morning&paid_regi=1&productCode=NN&regi_id=91739846&segment_id=171563&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F7a5b52c9-bb3b-5ddc-9283-7e255fd42ba0&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4

2024july05.   jobs wages inflation.    

2024jun26.   homes.    Ultracheap mortgages that were secured when interest rates were low have created a “lock-in” effect, trapping owners in their homes—an unforeseen consequence of years of easy money. As more owners stay put, the number of homes on the market has fallen. Tight supply is pushing prices higher, shrinking the pool of buyers who can afford a home.  https://10point.cmail20.com/t/d-e-eiuirhy-djydktlltk-r/

2024jun26.   immigration.    https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/interactive/2024/us-immigration-where-migrants-live/  

2024jun26.   household spending.    The typical American household has also changed. Families have fewer children, and young people are slower to create their own households. More people have college degrees, and retirees make up a swelling share of the population.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2024/us-spending-housing-healthcare-costs/?itid=hp_most-read_p007_f001_1


2024jun15.   Disney World.    Disney is approved to build a fifth major theme park at Disney World and two more minor parks, such as water parks, if it desires. The company can also raise the number of hotel rooms on its property from almost 40,000 rooms to more than 53,000 rooms and increase the amount of retail and restaurant space by more than 20%. Disney will retain control of building heights so it can maintain an immersive environment.        The March settlement ended almost two years of litigation sparked by DeSantis’ takeover of the district after the company’s opposition to a 2022 law that bans classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades. The law was championed by the Republican governor, who used Disney as a punching bag in speeches during his run for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination until he suspended his campaign earlier this year.     As punishment for Disney’s opposition to the controversial law, DeSantis took over the governing district through legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature and appointed a new board of supervisors. Disney sued DeSantis and his appointees, claiming the company’s free speech rights were violated for speaking out against the legislation. A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit in January, but Disney appealed.  https://apnews.com/article/florida-california-disney-desantis-theme-parks-d999eafa1fec277cc679ea3f328a114c?user_email=9a18118e64ac886183a1f61de74720d43b1343700b8a12e015ddf73957378e06&utm_medium=Afternoon_Wire&utm_source=Sailthru_AP&utm_campaign=AfternoonWire_June14_2024&utm_term=Afternoon%20Wire


2024jun18.   rents.    

  2024jun14. deficits     .2024jun14.   deficits' debt.    National debt will exceed $50 trillion by 2034, budget watchdog estimates.        The Congressional Budget Office says this year’s federal deficit will hit $1.9 trillion, as defense and social safety net costs rise.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/06/18/national-debt-budget-projections-cbo/?utm_campaign=wp_evening_edition&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3e084d3%2F6671f565fb010d1c5dcf1f7d%2F598b051fae7e8a68162a1429%2F10%2F41%2F6671f565fb010d1c5dcf1f7d

2024jun14.   deficits .    Trump cut the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent in 2017, but the measure is set to expire next year. Even though business profits have boomed under Biden and stock markets are at record highs, many executives worry about the president’s plans to raise taxes on the wealthy and companies.    That said, Trump offered no detail (and later reportedly floated getting rid of income taxes altogether).    Biden has proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent. He also plans to maintain the tax cuts for lower and middle income Americans while allowing taxes to rise again for those earning more than $400,000, or on big inheritances.  https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?campaign_id=4&emc=edit_dk_20240614&first_send=0&instance_id=126233&isViewInBrowser=true&nl=dealbook&paid_regi=1&regi_id=91739846&segment_id=169569&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2Fe8e39cfd-fbd6-5869-8126-dc3d83e52041&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4

2024mar24.   deficits.    The Treasury market has grown more than 60% to $27 trillion since the end of 2019. It is roughly sixfold larger than before the 2008-09 financial crisis.    “Running a nearly $2 trillion deficit during a peacetime economic expansion—that’s a lot of bonds for the market to absorb,” said Stephen Miran, an adjunct fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute and a former Treasury Department senior adviser who assisted with the Covid-19 response.    The Congressional Budget Office anticipates government spending that continues to climb in the coming years, with an aging population raising the cost of programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Rising interest costs could also boost issuance.

2024may22.   inflation.     Three years after misreading the inflation forecast, a wary Federal Reserve is taking its time on interest-rate moves this time around.  https://10point.cmail20.com/t/d-e-eijhrc-djydktlltk-r/

2024may22.   immigration.     It’s not clear whether immigration has ever previously risen so quickly in so many different countries. (​I​f anything, the chart here understates the trend because it ends in 2020, the last year with available data.)    This migration boom has had big advantages. It has allowed millions of people to escape poverty and violence. It has diversified Western culture. It has brought workers into Europe and the U.S. who have held ​down the cost of labor-intensive businesses.    But the boom has also had downsides. More labor competition can obviously hurt the workers who already live in a country. Governments have strained to provide social services to the arrivals. And the rise in immigration has been so rapid that many citizens feel uncomfortable with the associated societal changes. Historically, major immigration increases tend to spark political backlashes.       In nearly every large Western country, the foreign-born share of the population has risen sharply since 1990:

https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20240612&instance_id=126028&isViewInBrowser=true&nl=the-morning&paid_regi=1&productCode=NN&regi_id=91739846&segment_id=169357&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2Faaa4be45-07ca-5a59-b63d-47df05ba50df&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4

2024may22.   wealth gap.     https://10point.cmail20.com/t/d-e-eiypa-djydktlltk-r/

2024may22.   inflation.     The European Central Bank on Thursday cut interest rates for the first time in five years, a sign of significant progress in the global fight to subdue the highest inflation since the early 1980s.    The ECB, as expected, became the first major central bank to lower borrowing costs, cutting its policy rates by one-quarter of a percentage point. Annual inflation in May was 2.6 percent, down from a peak of 10.6 percent in October 2022.        The move came even as ECB officials raised their inflation forecast and warned that wages were increasing at an “elevated” rate. Prices are now expected to rise this year at an annual rate of 2.5 percent, compared with a March forecast of 2.3 percent.    But months of steady progress convinced policymakers that a modest reduction in borrowing costs was warranted, ECB President Christine Lagarde said in Frankfurt. Much of the increase in euro-zone wages represents labor contracts intended to compensate for the past few years of fast-rising prices, rather than an ongoing trend, she said.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/06/06/european-central-bank-interest-rates-cut/?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere&location=alert

2024may28.   wages.     https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-immigrants-are-in-the-american-workforce/?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6_3_24_Cancer%20deep%20dive%20softbounce&_kx=uHixQiFPvwDEzHH1bKN5OwGjyRn41v5YpJ9rfDg_f0E.SH8aQb


Microsoft

2024may28.   AI.     Microsoft, OpenAI and Google have more of a closed A.I. strategy to guard their tech, out of what they say is an abundance of caution. But Mr. Zuckerberg has loudly stood behind how the technology should be open to all.    “This technology is so important, and the opportunities are so great, that we should open source and make it as widely available as we responsibly can, so that way everyone can benefit,” he said in an Instagram video in January.        Since Meta’s first fully open-source A.I. model, called LLaMA 2, was released in July, the software has been downloaded more than 180 million times, the company said. A more powerful version of the model, LLaMA 3, which was released in April, reached the top of the download charts on Hugging Face, a community site for A.I. code, at record speed.    Developers have created tens of thousands of their own customized A.I. programs on top of Meta’s A.I. software to perform everything from helping clinicians read radiology scans to creating scores of digital chatbot assistants.  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/technology/mark-zuckerberg-meta-ai.html

2024may28.   AI.     Aramco’s computer scientists are also training artificial intelligence models, using nearly 90 years of oil field data, to increase the efficiency of drilling and extraction, thus reducing carbon dioxide emissions.  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/business/saudi-arabia-renewable-energy-solar-wind.html

2024may28.   recession.     The yield curve has been inverted for a record stretch—around 400 trading sessions or more by some measures—with no signs of a major slowdown. U.S. employers added a solid 175,000 jobs last month, and economic growth this quarter is expected to pick up from earlier in the year.     If a recession doesn’t materialize soon, it could do lasting damage to the yield curve’s status as a warning system, providing one of the most significant examples of how the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic has upended longstanding assumptions on Wall Street about how markets and the economy function. Even if the past couple of years have been unusual, investors likely wouldn’t be as worried when another inversion occurs in the future.  https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/wall-streets-favorite-recession-indicator-is-in-a-slump-of-its-own-ee885cb9?mod=djem10point

2024may28.   AI.     OpenAI said on Tuesday that it has begun training a new flagship artificial intelligence model that would succeed the GPT-4 technology that drives its popular online chatbot, ChatGPT.    The San Francisco start-up, which is one of the world’s leading A.I. companies, said in a blog post that it expects the new model to bring “the next level of capabilities” as it strives to build “artificial general intelligence,” or A.G.I., a machine that can do anything the human brain can do. The new model would be an engine for A.I. products including chatbots, digital assistants akin to Apple’s Siri, search engines and image generators.  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/28/technology/openai-gpt4-new-model.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20240528&instance_id=124660&nl=the-morning&regi_id=91739846&segment_id=167977&te=1&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4

024may25.   jobs.     Currently, there are 8.5 million job openings. That exceeds the number of pre-pandemic job openings by 1.5 million. Meanwhile, there are 6.5 million unemployed people. That means there’s more than one job per job seeker. In the decade preceding the pandemic, that ratio was 0.6 on average, signifying there were more job seekers than the number of job openings.    Americans’ average hourly earnings are 22% higher than before the pandemic, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Though wage increases have been slowing, they’re rising at a faster rate than prices.    https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/24/business/us-economy-whats-happening/index.html

Apparently PCE inflation than other rates shown in thin curration.

024may22.   inflation.     While Fed officials continued to think rates were high enough to slow the economy and inflation, central bankers signaled they were less certain over the degree to which rates would restrain activity and price pressures, according to minutes of their April 30-May 1 meeting released today. Some officials were open to raising rates if inflation reaccelerated. The Fed voted to hold its benchmark federal-funds rate steady in a range between 5.25% and 5.5%, the highest in more than two decades and a level it reached last July. U.S. stocks retreated after the Fed minutes showed uncertainty over inflation.  https://whatsnews.cmail19.com/t/d-e-etijtid-iudygtktd-r/

2024may21.   inflation.     We have two main measures of inflation: the Consumer Price Index, which pretty much everyone knows about, and the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, which the Federal Reserve prefers as a guide to monetary policy; explaining the differences between these measures would probably be telling you more than you want to know. Anyway, the P.C.E. is currently looking more benign than the C.P.I., but both show that the rate of price increases over the past year was much slower than it was when inflation was at its peak in 2022:  https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?campaign_id=116&emc=edit_pk_20240521&first_send=0&instance_id=124039&isViewInBrowser=true&nl=paul-krugman&paid_regi=1&regi_id=91739846&segment_id=167344&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F4ea48f25-51fa-5dad-a560-e89d16208602&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4


2024may21.   AI.     Electricity grids creak as AI demands soar.  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj5ll89dy2mo

Identifying Derivative Data leveraging Generative AI and Google Cloud.  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/identifying-derivative-data-leveraging-generative-ai-cloud-zia 

2024may22.   AI.     ... the type of A.I. systems that power ChatGPT and other popular chatbots, are not programmed line by line by human engineers, as conventional computer programs are.    Instead, these systems essentially learn on their own, by ingesting vast amounts of data and identifying patterns and relationships in language, then using that knowledge to predict the next words in a sequence.    One consequence of building A.I. systems this way is that it’s difficult to reverse-engineer them or to fix problems by identifying specific bugs in the code.        ... there’s no real way of understanding why the model made [an] error, or why the next person who asks may receive a different answer.        The researchers looked inside one of Anthropic’s A.I. models — Claude 3 Sonnet, a version of the company’s Claude 3 language model — and used a technique known as “dictionary learning” to uncover patterns in how combinations of neurons, the mathematical units inside the A.I. model, were activated when Claude was prompted to talk about certain topics. They identified roughly 10 million of these patterns, which they call “features.”          They found that one feature, for example, was active whenever Claude was asked to talk about San Francisco. Other features were active whenever topics like immunology or specific scientific terms, such as the chemical element lithium, were mentioned. And some features were linked to more abstract concepts, like deception or gender bias.        ... manually turning certain features on or off could change how the A.I. system behaved, or could get the system to even break its own [trained] rules.         ... they discovered that if they forced a feature linked to the concept of sycophancy to activate more strongly, Claude would respond with flowery, over-the-top praise for the user, including in situations where flattery was inappropriate.        Mr. Olah, the Anthropic research leader, cautioned that while the new findings represented important progress, A.I. interpretability was still far from a solved problem.        ... he said, the largest A.I. models most likely contain billions of features representing distinct concepts — many more than the 10 million or so features that Anthropic’s team claims to have discovered. Finding them all would require enormous amounts of computing power and would be too costly for all but the richest A.I. companies to attempt.  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/21/technology/ai-language-models-anthropic.html          When training Harv's Spirit Principles system, he used 12? features to 'train' his resulting singular output -- perhaps a sliver in trying to understand AI.

2024may15.   inflation.     KEY POINTS         Fed Chair Jerome Powell reiterated Tuesday that inflation is falling more slowly than expected, likely keeping interest rates elevated for an extended period.        Tuesday brought a fresh round of discouraging inflation data, when the producer price index rose a higher-than-expected 0.5% in April.        “We did not expect this to be a smooth road. But these [inflation readings] were higher than I think anybody expected,” Powell said in Amsterdam. “What that has told us is that we’ll need to be patient and let restrictive policy do its work.”           https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/14/powell-says-inflation-has-been-higher-than-thought-and-expects-rates-to-hold-steady.html        Harv speculates that 'others' are not patient, and they are contrarily against restrictive policy -- they are living 'unrestricted' (freeing) lifetimes.

Consumer Price Index     https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/15/business/cpi-inflation-fed

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/05/15/cpi-inflation-fed/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3db9584%2F6644da6853df4a059ee699e2%2F598b051fae7e8a68162a1429%2F17%2F47%2F6644da6853df4a059ee699e2

2024may13.   immigration - border crossings.      https://www.vox.com/politics/24153132/us-border-crisis-mexico-migrant-immigration-asylum








2024may13.   immigration - birth rates.    https://www.wsj.com/world/birthrates-global-decline-cause-ddaf8be2


2024apr28.   autos.    https://www.wsj.com/business/global-battery-race-heats-up-with-billions-for-europes-northvolt-dec5f2f1?mod=series_electricvehicles


The

2024apr18.   AI.    The most popular uses for AI at work are research and brainstorming, writing first-draft emails and creating visuals and presentations, according to an Adobe survey.  https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-smartest-way-to-use-ai-at-work-ce921ff4         First reference of popular use.  Harv uses face recognition into smart devices.

2024apr16.   housing.    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/15/upshot/mortgage-rates-homes-stuck.html


2024apr10.   inflation.    https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/10/business/cpi-inflation-fed?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20240410&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta&regi_id=91739846&segment_id=163087&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4#inflation-takes-center-stage-as-economists-look-for-signs-of-continued-slowing

2024apr10.   energy.    A boom in data centers and factories is straining electric grids and propping up fossil fuels.  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/13/climate/electric-power-climate-change.html


2024apr05.   employment.    39th Straight Month of Growth.       Now taken for granted ?    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/05/business/economy/jobs-report-march-2024.html


2024mar29.   shipping.    The world has seen an increase in not just the volume of trade, but in the velocity of its delivery. The concept of the sea being a free and open common for commerce has been a fact since the 1600s. And, since the end of World War II, ships have plied the oceans unfettered. Nonetheless, the reality is that ocean-shipping has become safer over time. Thirty years ago, the world was losing over 200 ships a year. Only 38 succumbed in 2022. How then do we explain events like Ever Given, Ever Forward and now Dali?    While Baltimore has invested in deepening their channel and harbor and new ship-to-shore cranes to offload ships, some aspects of the maritime infrastructure remained frozen in time, such as the Key Bridge, which was designed over 50 years ago.         The Dali falls under the jurisdiction of US Coast Guard as it sails in American waters. The channel into and out of Baltimore is maintained and regulated by the Army Corps of Engineers. The bridge falls under the Maryland Department of Transportation and the port is the city of Baltimore. No one agency has oversight of or coordinates global shipping or ports in the US. This will again complicate matters during the salvage operation with competing agencies and interests at work.        There is also no overall maritime strategy for the nation, although the US Department of Transportation, Maritime Administration has been tasked to develop one. Similarly, there is no national port strategy for the US. The Federal Maritime Commission — which regulates US international ocean transportation — undertook a study in 2015 that identified many of the shortfalls experienced during the supply chain crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, but lacked the ability to implement many of the recommendations. The Maritime Administration has not even published an annual report since 2013.        In 2022, two congressmen from across the aisle, Democratic Rep. John Garamendi of California and Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota offered and passed the first piece of maritime reform legislation in over two decades — the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022. It aimed to give more rights to American importers and exporters and hold the large shipping firms accountable.    But more needs to be done. 

2024mar28.   energy.    The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge doesn’t include volatile food and energy costs. Still, rising prices displayed on corner gas stations and highway billboards are constant reminders of economic pressures.         Record American crude output in 2023 surprised forecasters, and kept prices in check. This year, production cuts by members of the Saudi and Russia-led OPEC+ cartel have helped push up the price of benchmark U.S. crude by 14%, to $81.35 a barrel.         In Russia, meanwhile, an expanding Ukrainian drone campaign has hammered key refineries. The damage has required monthslong repairs and pushed the Kremlin to conserve domestic supplies by curbing fuel exports, which often end up in China, India or Turkey.        With so much money to be made, more American refineries have powered back up in recent weeks, promising to help refill storage tanks around the country. On Wall Street, traders are betting those incoming supplies will help push wholesale gasoline prices lower starting in May.   https://www.wsj.com/finance/commodities-futures/gas-prices-rising-2024-cause-86b864d7?mod=hp_lead_pos4

2024mar24.   energy.    [Every 3 days]  the world adds a new data center, according to Bill Vass, vice president of engineering at Amazon Web Services. The explosion of artificial-intelligence—and the data centers that power it—is fueling an insatiable appetite for electricity, creating risks to the grid and the transition to cleaner energy sources, according to utility executives.  https://10point.cmail20.com/t/d-e-eeujuk-djydktlltk-r/

2024mar20.   inflation.    https://www.nytimes.com/


2024mar19.   wages.    https://manage.kmail-lists.com/subscriptions/web-view?a=SH8aQb&c=01HNNHNDND2X0H22B7RXNNM8VD&k=a2d3986886ac3d927d14e95f53b80a7d&m=01HS9NBRRB3X4ESWKQ62WTJDKA&r=3anXehxd

2024mar17.   immigration.    A lack of foreign-born workers in the United States hamstrung employers back in 2021 and 2022. But their return to the U.S. labor force, due to both legal and illegal immigration, helped propel economic growth in 2023 beyond expectations.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/16/economy-recovery-covid-unemployment-wages-debt-groceries/?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere&location=alert


2024mar12.   immigration.    The nation had 9.03 million job openings in December 2023, or 2.76 million more open jobs than unemployed people. Still, that’s down 20% from a year prior. This was 5.4% of all nonfarm jobs in the country. (Nonfarm means all workers except those in farming, which the Agriculture Department tracks, as well as private household employees, proprietors, and unpaid volunteers.)   https://manage.kmail-lists.com/subscriptions/web-view?a=SH8aQb&c=01HNNHNDND2X0H22B7RXNNM8VD&k=a2d3986886ac3d927d14e95f53b80a7d&m=01HRQK3FEGHE1NPGR9NT71VQED&r=3acTkA4y

2024mar08.   wages.     


2024mar03.   communications.     ... extraordinary instances of Ma Bell’s involvement with Uncle Sam. The company owed its very existence to a favorable federal patent ruling in 1878, which saved it from an early death at the hands of Western Union, the dominant telegraph company then trying to crush its new rival. A little more than a century later, Washington broke up AT&T. But regulators soon allowed many of the company’s parts to merge back together. This consolidation, Tim Wu argues in “The Master Switch,” probably allowed the Bush administration to conduct its wiretapping program in secret for so long.    AT&T is the star of Wu’s book, an intellectually ambitious history of modern communications. The organizing principle — only rarely overdrawn — is what Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, calls “the cycle.” “History shows a typical progression of information technologies,” he writes, “from somebody’s hobby to somebody’s industry; from jury-rigged contraption to slick production marvel; from a freely accessible channel to one strictly controlled by a single corporation or cartel — from open to closed system.” Eventually, entrepreneurs or regulators smash apart the closed system, and the cycle begins anew.  https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/books/review/Leonhardt-t.html?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20240305

Almost 15 years ago, a law professor named Tim Wu published a book called “The Master Switch” that helped me to understand this issue. In the book, Wu used a term — “the cycle” — to describe what happened after a new form of communication arrived, be it the telephone, radio or internet.    Initially, he explained, new communication industries are diffuse, dominated by small players. The barriers to entry are low. In the early days of radio, amateur stations proliferated, much as the early internet was quirky and offered few opportunities for profit.    Over time, though, the new industry tends to become concentrated for a reason: Almost every form of communication depends on a network of users. And larger networks are inherently more valuable than smaller networks.    Once a radio station becomes popular, more people want to listen to it so they can know what other people are hearing, and more companies want to buy advertisements. The same is true with the internet: If all my friends have an Instagram account, I’ll want one, too. This cycle is reinforcing, causing large companies to grow even larger. It’s part of what economists call “increasing returns to scale.”    But consolidation brings a major downside for a society. Communication businesses can become monopolies, with the power to set prices and control society’s discourse.    For most of the 21st century, regulators in the U.S. and other countries allowed technology companies to grow ever larger. (Consider this statistic: The combined stock market value of Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and the parent companies of Facebook and Google has more than doubled since just the end of 2019.) Only recently have regulators have begun to step in.    The Biden administration has made antitrust enforcement in the technology sector a top priority. “The president knows that vibrant capitalism depends on strong competition,” Lael Brainard, Biden’s top economic adviser inside the White House, said yesterday. “Competition lowers prices, raises wages and levels the playing field for small businesses.”    One sign of the change is Wu himself. When he published “The Master Switch” in 2010, he was a professor at Columbia University. Four years later, he ran a doomed campaign for lieutenant governor as a critic of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and concentrated corporate power. Since then, however, both Democratic and Republican policymakers have become more concerned about Big Tech — and Wu is no longer just a gadfly. After President Biden took office in 2021, he appointed Wu as an adviser.  https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20240305&instance_id=116758&isViewInBrowser=true&nl=the-morning&paid_regi=1&productCode=NN&regi_id=91739846&segment_id=159863&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F07238466-3802-5942-9963-e394d3a89d1c&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4

2024mar03.   ISS.     Since its first modules launched at the end of 1998, the International Space Station has been orbiting 250 miles above Earth. But at the end of 2030, NASA plans to crash the ISS into the ocean after it is replaced with a new space station, a reminder that nothing within Earth's orbit can stay in space forever.    NASA is collaborating on developing a space station owned, built, and operated by a private company — either Axiom Space, Voyager Space, or Blue Origin. NASA is giving each company hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and sharing their expertise with them.        ... any company that is able to develop their own space station, get approval from the federal government and launch it into space will be able to pursue their own deep space missions – even without the approval of NASA.    Phil McCalister, director of the Commercial Space Division of NASA, told NPR's Morning Edition that NASA does not want to own in perpetuity everything in low-Earth orbit – which is up to 1,200 miles above Earth's surface.    "We want to turn those things over to other organizations that could potentially do it more cost-effectively, and then focus our research and activities on deep space exploration," said McCalister.  https://www.npr.org/2024/02/21/1232639289/international-space-station-retirement-space-stations-future?ft=nprml&f=1026

2024mar03.   inflation.     Economists are quick to say that a pivot is coming and that January data is often riddled with seasonal glitches that push inflation up. They also argue that real-time metrics just take time to break through the wonky math behind the BLS calculations. That’s partly because an individual unit is only captured in the surveys every six months, even if the lease’s cost changed in the interim. Plus, the BLS tracks rents for all tenants, not just those starting new leases — people staying put for a year or more might not see their costs change as rapidly.    But experts and policymakers are still scratching their heads as to why the split remains so pronounced month after month.         “That’s how strong the forces of undersupply are,” Divounguy said.    The housing market was turned on its head during the pandemic. But experts point to years, even decades, of sluggish housing construction before then that meant the country didn’t have enough homes when the pandemic hit. Suddenly, starting in 2020, people wanted to move quickly, split off from roommates or stretch out into more space. Before long, the surge in demand collided with the lack of supply.        That picture is all part of why economists remain optimistic that the lags will be overcome — eventually. Jay Lybik, national director of multifamily analytics at CoStar, said it typically takes market rent about three-quarters of the year to filter into government statistics. That timeline may be getting stretched out given how bizarrely the economy has performed and how off models have been as a result. But hopes haven’t been dashed yet.    “The way the [CPI] looks at housing in general,” Lybik said, “just doesn’t seem to match reality.”  https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/03/rent-cpi-housing-fed/?utm_campaign=wp_evening_edition&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3cf26fc%2F65e4f2f8e7ffd6163cdce3a7%2F598b051fae7e8a68162a1429%2F10%2F43%2F65e4f2f8e7ffd6163cdce3a7

2024feb16.   sanctions. ...  the sanctions failed to stop oil worth billions of dollars from leaving Iran over the past year, a New York Times investigation has found, revealing a significant gap in U.S. oversight.    The oil was transported aboard 27 tankers, using liability insurance obtained from an American company. That meant that the U.S. authorities could have disrupted the oil’s transport by advising the insurer, the New York-based American Club, to revoke the coverage, which is often a requirement for tankers to do business.  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/16/world/middleeast/iran-oil-tankers-sanctions.html


2024feb16.   sanctions.   https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20240216&instance_id=115330&nl=the-morning&paid_regi=1&productCode=NN&regi_id=91739846&segment_id=158366&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F811ffee1-dbb7-5f28-9af7-8c35262cddc6&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4


2024feb16.   government shutdown.   The Ukraine process faces yet another challenge in the looming prospect of a government shutdown, which could happen as soon as March 1 unless Congress agrees on a far larger spending package to fund the federal government. The House, which adjourned Thursday until the end of February, will have just two days to avert a shutdown when they return.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/02/15/ukraine-aid-house-mike-johnson/?utm_campaign=wp_politics_am&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_politics&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3cc38db%2F65cf4ae0ec0fc8332b7a6337%2F598b051fae7e8a68162a1429%2F43%2F67%2F65cf4ae0ec0fc8332b7a6337

2024feb13.   inflation.    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/13/business/a-key-inflation-gauge-probably-moderated-in-january.html

2024feb13.   immigration.    Voters and political strategists have treated our country’s ability to draw immigrants from around the world as a curse; it could be a blessing, if only we could get out of our own way.    Consider a few numbers: Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released updated 10-year economic and budget forecasts. The numbers look significantly better than they did a year earlier, and immigration is a key reason.    The CBO has now factored in a previously unexpected surge in immigration that began in 2022, which the agency assumes will persist for several years. These immigrants are more likely to work than their native-born counterparts, largely because immigrants skew younger. This infusion of working-age immigrants will more than offset the expected retirement of the aging, native-born population.    This will in turn lead to better economic growth. As CBO Director Phill Swagel wrote in a note accompanying the forecasts: As a result of these immigration-driven revisions to the size of the labor force, “we estimate that, from 2023 to 2034, GDP will be greater by about $7 trillion and revenues will be greater by about $1 trillion than they would have been otherwise.”  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/13/immigration-economy-jobs-cbo-report/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3cbb0d2%2F65cb9bb1d3805c51021f9dc0%2F598b051fae7e8a68162a1429%2F13%2F54%2F65cb9bb1d3805c51021f9dc0

2024feb09.   wages.    Almost four years have passed since Congress approved and Donald Trump signed a huge relief bill designed to limit the financial hardship created by the Covid-19 pandemic. The CARES Act did its job. Although around 25 million Americans temporarily lost their jobs — with the job losses mainly caused by fear of infection rather than officially mandated shutdowns — there was far less monetary pain than you might have expected given the magnitude of the public health crisis.    In fact, according to a Federal Reserve survey, the percentage of Americans “doing at least OK financially” was actually higher in July 2020 than it had been before the pandemic, presumably because for many people, government aid, including one-time checks and greatly enhanced unemployment benefits, more than made up for lost jobs and business. Furthermore, fears that generous aid during the pandemic would undermine America’s work ethic — that adults would leave the labor force and never come back — proved totally wrong. A new paper from the San Francisco Fed is titled “Why Is Prime-Age Labor Force Participation So High?” It notes that Americans between 25 and 54 are more likely to be in the work force now than they were at any time since the early 2000s.    So the CARES Act was a huge policy success. But given recent political developments, I’ve found myself thinking: What would have happened if Democrats in 2020 had behaved like Republicans in 2024?  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/opinion/trump-republicans-border-ukraine.html    The self takes in sadness, hate, fear from external sources, affecting or even polluting one's pie-of-life, yet, forget not, that pie-of-life has as its POCTA (Point Of Choice To Action) center.  By navigating his center through his pie-of-life, Harv can move his center to a sweeter joy-love-freeing portion of his pie-of-life, and effect his me-self history record from that sweeter place -- a process he calls betterment.  The sweetness of is pie-of-life consists of his financial wealth, his health wealth mental and physical, and the comfort and ease he can demonstrate in navigating to the sweeter place from external circumstance.  Along his life-way of navigation, and among other actions, he muses, he reads written evidence from the reports of actions coming out of his chosen world-span of reporters. He muses of his pie-of-life sweetness, applies not instant genius, and goes on with his life-way.

2024feb02.   wages.    

2024feb01.   inflation.    The Fed left rates unchanged, in a range of 5.25 to 5.5 percent, at their highest level in more than two decades. What surprised Wall Street was Powell’s reluctance to indicate that borrowing costs would be coming down as soon as March, leading to markets’ worst day in months.    “I don’t think it’s likely the committee will reach a level of confidence by the time of the March meeting to identify March as the time to do that,” Powell said at a news conference yesterday.    The Fed is worried that inflation isn’t fully under control. Price increases have been slowing in recent months and the job market remains strong, raising hopes that the economy is headed for a soft landing.    But Powell wants more evidence that inflation is definitively moving toward the Fed’s 2 percent target.  https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?campaign_id=4&emc=edit_dk_20240201&first_send=0&instance_id=114038&nl=dealbook&paid_regi=1&productCode=DK&regi_id=91739846&segment_id=156998&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F9d8cfe1f-8a2a-5277-bbb0-01b316163f56&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4

2024jan26.   inflation.    A measure of inflation closely watched by the Federal Reserve continued to cool in December, the latest sign that price increases are coming back under control even as growth remains solid and the labor market healthy. In particularly positive news, a key gauge of price increases dipped below 3 percent for the first time since early 2021.    The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index picked up 2.6 percent last month compared to a year earlier. That was in line with what economists had forecast and matched the November reading.        Fed officials aim for 2 percent price increases, so today’s inflation remains elevated. Still, it is much lower than its roughly 7 percent peak in 2022. In their latest economic projections, central bankers predicted that inflation would cool to 2.4 percent by the end of the year.  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/26/business/federal-reserve-inflation.html

2024jan25.   taxes.    The free federal tax filing program is just one of the many changes happening at the IRS after it received new funding, totaling $80 billion over a decade, from the Inflation Reduction Act. But there are ongoing threats from Republicans to cut the agency’s funding.    Democrats say the money is meant to help the IRS ramp up its enforcement efforts on high-income taxpayers as well as improve its archaic taxpayer services system.    With the funding, the IRS has improved phone service, put a plan in motion to digitize all paper-filed tax returns and is expected to make improvements this year to its existing online tool known as “Where’s My Refund?” so that it will be able to give taxpayers more detailed information about the status of their refund.    The agency also has collected millions of dollars in back taxes by cracking down on millionaires who haven’t paid what they owe.    But Republicans have claimed that the IRS will use the money to hound middle-class taxpayers and small business owners and have made several efforts to claw back the money.    Some lawmakers have repeatedly proposed taking back the funding from the Inflation Reduction Act. Last year, in a deal to address the debt ceiling and avoid a US default, Democrats agreed to allow for $20 billion of the Inflation Reduction Act funds to be rescinded.  https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/25/politics/irs-direct-file-pilot/index.html

2024jan25.   GDP.    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/business/economy/economy-q4-gdp.html

2024jan19.   sentiment.    It appears Americans are finally feeling better about the economy.    Consumer sentiment, a window into the nation’s financial mood, jumped 13 percent in January to its highest level since mid-2021, reflecting optimism that inflation is easing and incomes are rising, according to a closely watched survey by the University of Michigan. Since November, consumer sentiment has risen 29 percent, marking the largest two-month increase in more than 30 years.    Gas prices, often a key driver of sentiment, have fallen 40 percent since June 2022, to just over $3 a gallon. Weekly jobless claims are at their lowest level in more than a year. Sales of cars, clothing and sporting goods all picked up during the holidays, as consumers felt confident enough to keep spending.    Meanwhile, the stock market is surging to new records, with the S&P 500 closing at an all-time high on Friday.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/01/19/economy-sentiment-biden-inflation/?utm_campaign=wp_evening_edition&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter

2024jan16.   employment.    The Biden administration has begun pumping more than $2 trillion into U.S. factories and infrastructure, investing huge sums to try to strengthen American industry and fight climate change.    But the effort is facing a familiar threat: a surge of low-priced products from China. That is drawing the attention of President Biden and his aides, who are considering new protectionist measures to make sure American industry can compete against Beijing.  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/business/economy/china-electric-cars-chips-solar.html

2024jan13.   energy.    ... one of the projects in September, plan to produce hydrogen using excess solar and wind power in spring and fall, when demand for electricity is low, and store it in the caverns. Then in the summer, when electricity demand is high, it would be burned in the second project, a power plant that would use a blend of hydrogen and natural gas.    That new plant would replace an aging facility that burns coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels, but would still emit some planet-warming gases depending on the mix of natural gas and hydrogen.    Using hydrogen as a battery is one of the more audacious concepts being developed as industries and governments work to wean the world from fossil fuels.  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/climate/green-hydrogen-climate-change.html

2024jan11.   inflation.    https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/01/11/business/cpi-inflation-fed

2023dec12.   inflation.    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/business/economy/november-inflation-report.html

2023dec09.   energy.    The vehicle will “expose plant seeds to the harsh radiation environment of long-duration spaceflight” in an experiment for NASA. In the past, the Pentagon has also used the X-37B to test some of its cutting edge technologies, including a small solar panel designed to transform solar energy into microwaves, a technology that one day could allow energy harnessed in space to be beamed back to Earth.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/09/space-plane-launch-x37b/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most

2023dec08.   employment.   

2023dec02.   climate - methane.   The oil industry has long leaked methane into the atmosphere, contributing to the greenhouse gasses that are warming the planet. Now, new federal rules aim to dramatically reduce that pollution in the next 15 years.        The EPA estimates the new rule will reduce methane emissions nearly 80% below what they were projected to be, and that will "prevent an estimated 58 million tons of methane emissions from 2024 to 2038." The agency says that's the equivalent climate warming power "as all the carbon dioxide emitted by the power sector in 2021."        The agency also estimates the final rule will have net financial benefits of at least $7.3 billion a year from 2024 - 2038. Included in that accounting is the cost of deploying new technologies, along with climate savings and health benefits.  https://www.npr.org/2023/12/02/1216401828/epa-aims-to-slash-the-oil-industrys-climate-warming-methane-pollution

2023dec01.   oil.   https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/01/business/energy-environment/us-oil-production-record-climate.html


2023nov28.   corporate debt.    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/28/business/economy/corporate-interest-rates.html

2023nov20.   education.    Last year, 701,945 students came from other countries to study in the US. That’s up from the lows in the 200,000–400,000 range in the wake of the pandemic and comparable to 2019, when 728,739 students arrived. The peak over the last decade was 989,795 in 2015.


2023nov20.   energy.    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/20/climate/global-power-electricity-fossil-fuels-coal.html

    



2023nov20.   AI.    Ousted OpenAI leader Sam Altman joins Microsoft.        The board pushing out Altman threw OpenAI into turmoil. Microsoft has invested $13 billion into OpenAI, which is said to have been working on a deal that would value the company at nearly $90 billion, but that is now in limbo in the wake of Altman's exit.    OpenAI, founded by Altman, Elon Musk and others about eight years ago as a nonprofit AI research lab, released ChatGPT last year, setting the pace for the entire tech industry's focus on a sophisticated type of artificial intelligence known as generative AI.  https://www.npr.org/2023/11/20/1214110423/openai-sam-altman-joins-microsoft

2023nov19.   AI.    Shares of Microsoft (MSFT) fell after Altman’s ouster Friday, and the company’s leadership probably wants the wunderkind leader of its most promising (and very expensive) investment back at the helm before the market opens Monday.    The company is a nonprofit. But Altman, Brockman and Sutskever in 2019 formed OpenAI LP, a for-profit entity that exists within the larger company’s structure. That for-profit company took OpenAI from worthless to a valuation of $90 billion in just a few years – and Altman is largely credited as the mastermind of that plan and the key to the company’s success.    Altman had pushed the for-profit company to innovate faster and go to market with products. That reportedly scared the company’s board, which remained majority controlled by the nonprofit wing of the company. CNN contributor Kara Swisher reported that OpenAI’s recent developer conference served as an inflection point: Altman announced that OpenAI would make tools available so anyone could create their own version of ChatGPT.  https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/19/tech/sam-altman-openai-board/index.html

2023nov14.   deficits.    https://us14.campaign-archive.com/?e=6bda99e89e&u=ff1bc9abb222ec965ded81e5e&id=2107e8d8a8


...

2023nov08.   employment.    ... investors looked at slowing job growth, easing inflation, rising fears of credit defaults and global political instability and decided Powell can’t possibly be serious about another hike. So they’ve sent stocks soaring again and increased bets on rate cuts by spring.   https://mailchi.mp/themessenger.com/why-the-street-doesnt-believe-the-fed?e=a1ac8990c7

2023nov07.   well-being.  https://us14.campaign-archive.com/?e=6bda99e89e&u=ff1bc9abb222ec965ded81e5e&id=c539d54d68  


2023nov07.   well-being.   https://us14.campaign-archive.com/?e=6bda99e89e&u=ff1bc9abb222ec965ded81e5e&id=c539d54d68  


2023nov01.   employment.   https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/business/economy/jobs-report-october-2023.html


2023nov01.   inflation.   https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/01/business/economy/fed-interest-rates-inflation-economy.html


2023oct26.   GDP.    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/26/gdp-third-quarter-economy-growth/

2023oct16.   well being.    dead children  https://us14.campaign-archive.com/?e=6bda99e89e&u=ff1bc9abb222ec965ded81e5e&id=fe80232afe  


2023oct16.   housing.  https://whatsnews.cmail19.com/t/d-e-vdljiht-iudygtktd-r/  


2023oct12.   inflation.   https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/12/business/cpi-inflation-fed  


2023oct10.   education.    https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20231010&instance_id=104816&nl=the-morning&productCode=NN&regi_id=91739846&segment_id=146933&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2Fcf208c9d-bbf2-5ec0-87e0-01b1b86d4ed3&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4

2023oct06.   employment.    https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/06/business/jobs-report-september-economy


2023oct06.   oil.  https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=4&emc=edit_dk_20231006&instance_id=104562&nl=dealbook&productCode=DK&regi_id=91739846&segment_id=146660&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F60d68cb7-0beb-5d69-931e-648eb95eb749&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4

2023oct03.   employment.   United Auto Workers are on strike against the big three automakers: General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis (Chrysler’s parent company). Last year, the auto industry employed over 4.3 million people, making up 1.7% of all jobs nationwide. Which states have the most people working in the industry and how many cars are made in the US?  


2023sep29.   employment.  ... the Kaiser strike threat is primarily driven by a colossal understaffing crisis. An exodus of health care workers due to COVID-19 – coupled with a surge in demand as patients return for routine care they had delayed because of the pandemic – has heightened the severity of the staffing shortage, according to Caroline Lucas, executive director of the union coalition.    "We went from really having a problem on the horizon to having a crisis here and now," Lucas said.    Lucas said understaffing was a concern even before the COVID-19 pandemic. But she said Kaiser executives "kicked the can down the road," at the same time that the pandemic hit the U.S. https://www.npr.org/2023/09/29/1202315013/kaiser-permanente-health-care-workers-strike

2023sep23.   oil.    


   

2023sep23.   wages.    When German automaker Mercedes revealed plans to open a new assembly plant in the U.S. in 1993, 19 states started courting the luxury car maker.    Alabama was considered the dark horse. Its proposed site near Tuscaloosa had no major airport, the state had an unskilled workforce and high poverty.    But none of that scared away Mercedes when it chose Alabama that September. The unskilled workforce was low-cost and, crucially, not unionized. The southern states' union opposition and willingness to offer huge financial incentives has led to a foreign car making boom in the region.    Yet autoworkers in the South are watching the current UAW strikes closely. They're left out of the negotiations and any benefits that could come out of them.    But if the United Auto Workers union secures a big bump in pay for their members, the region's foreign auto makers would also likely provide their own raises to stay competitive. It would make the UAW much more attractive in the South, which makes the companies nervous.    "Workers feel that they're going to get the same thing that the UAW is going to get," Morris Mock, a technician at a Nissan plant near Jackson, Mississippi, said.    Alabama didn't just win Mercedes over because it wasn't favorable to unions. The state also provided incentives of roughly $400 million. Other states in the South have dangled far greater baubles to lure foreign automakers since then. Last year, Georgia and local governments promised Hyundai $1.8 billion in tax breaks, new roads and other benefits in exchange for a new electric vehicle plant in the state.    The incentive war and the lack of unions have made the South the destination of choice for foreign automakers. BMW led the way when it announced a South Carolina plant in 1992. Honda and Hyundai followed Mercedes to Alabama. Nissan went just north of Jackson, Mississippi. Volkswagen chose Tennessee.    Auto workforce has ballooned to tens of thousands    The Biden Administration has also gotten in on the incentives game, this time to encourage foreign automakers to make more of their EVs in America. That could lead to new plants heading to Southern states, like the one in Georgia.    "If it's got to be in the United States it's going to be in the South," said A.J. Jacobs, a sociologist who wrote the book "The New Domestic Automakers in the United States and Canada" about the rise of foreign automaker plants in North America.  https://www.npr.org/2023/09/22/1200875078/south-non-union-uaw-strike-foreign-automakers

2023sep20.   oil.     


2023sep19.   immigration.     “As a city that is not very far away from the border, we’re used to people coming here seeking refuge and shelter,” said Hugo Soto-Martinez, a City Council member whose parents immigrated to Los Angeles from Mexico decades ago and worked as street vendors. “Luckily, we have the infrastructure.”    Officials at homeless shelters in Los Angeles report that they have not seen a significant increase in recent migrants seeking temporary housing. Immigrant aid groups say they have been able to develop an efficient process to help the migrants who do arrive on the buses sent by Texas, usually a few dozen at a time.  https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/19/us/migrants-buses-la-nyc.html

2023sep19.   immigration.  


 2023sep15.   employment. 2023sep15.   employment. 2023sep15.   employment. 2023sep15.   employment.2023sep19.   spending. 

2023sep15.   employment.    


2023sep13.   inflation.   


The

2023sep12.   poverty.   The poverty rate, taking into account government aid programs to the poor, was 12.4 percent in 2022, up from 7.8 percent the previous year, the census data show. That spike follows two years of declines and coincided with the end of increased child tax credit payments and other government interventions.    The data tell “a story of what could have been,” said Arloc Sherman, vice president for data analysis and research at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “The pandemic showed that we could stand up policies that could help families. These numbers underscore how much poverty is a policy choice.”  https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/09/12/us-poverty-rate-census-uninsured-2022/?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere&location=alert

2023sep12.   immigration.   

2023sep12.   wages.   US actors Median hourly wages   

2023sep09.   exploration.   Four hours before the capsule’s atmospheric entry, the mission team will decide whether to send a command to the spacecraft to release the capsule, said Rich Burns, OSIRIS-REx project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.    The decision depends on the spacecraft’s trajectory, which determines the safety of humans within the landing zone, the capsule’s ability to survive the angle, the temperature of reentry, and accuracy of landing. The capsule will be released when OSIRIS-REx is 63,000 miles (102,000 kilometers) from Earth, headed for an area spanning 250 square miles (647.5 square kilometers) — “the equivalent of throwing a dart across the length of a basketball court and hitting the bull’s-eye,” Burns said.    Once the capsule releases, OSIRIS-REx will make a divert maneuver that sets it on a path around the sun as it targets another asteroid, Apophis, for a rendezvous in 2029, Burns said.    Entering Earth’s atmosphere will cause the capsule to become enveloped by a superhot ball of fire, but the container’s heat shield will protect the sample inside.    Parachutes will deploy to slow the capsule down for a gentle touchdown at 11 miles per hour (17.7 kilometers per hour), and recovery teams will be standing by to retrieve the capsule once it is safe to do so, said Sandra Freund, OSIRIS-REx program manager at Lockheed Martin Space, which partnered with NASA to build the spacecraft, provide flight operations and help recover the capsule.  https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/09/world/nasa-osiris-rex-sample-rehearsal-scn/index.html

2023sep08.   deficits.   The federal deficit for the first three-quarters of the fiscal year 2023 (which began in October 2022) was almost three times as high as a year before. Why? Very little of it was the result of new spending programs (although money is starting to flow out the door under the Biden administration’s industrial policies). Instead, it was mainly about two things: a sharp fall in tax receipts and rising interest payments.  https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=116&emc=edit_pk_20230908&instance_id=102292&nl=paul-krugman&productCode=PK&regi_id=91739846&segment_id=144250&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2Ff8e66782-2634-541f-9213-fe01299e8f0f&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4

2023sep06.   oil   The surge is sending ripples through the global stock and bond markets. And the prospect of higher prices at the pump and throughout manufacturing may spur diplomatic efforts to increase supply and tamp down any inflationary effects on the global economy.    Saudi Arabia and Russia are behind the price increase. The two said yesterday that they would extend their oil production cuts — equivalent to a combined 1.3 million barrels a day — through year-end. The duration of the cuts surprised market watchers, as did Saudi Arabia’s hint that it may make even deeper cuts in the coming months.  

https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=4&emc=edit_dk_20230906&instance_id=102035&nl=dealbook&productCode=DK&regi_id=91739846&segment_id=143856&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2Ffb0a739c-783c-5c5a-9a96-73482ba2ab73&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4

2023sep05.   Medicare spending has leveled off.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/05/upshot/medicare-budget-threat-receded.html