Politics & Stuff

[Fernando 6,585]

14 hours ago, Vesper said:

Many of the tariffs did not full take effect until recently or were 'TACO'd (ie Trump Always Chickens Out) and kicked down the road. Also many of the large firms built up inventory on a pre-tariff basis but those inventories will soon be gone, or are gone already.

Every time the US has tried a high tariff regime in modern times, it has been disastrous.

Trump, the wilfully ignorant economic 'thinker', thinks Smoot-Hawley was wonderful. 🤪

Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot–Hawley_Tariff_Act

The Tariff Act of 1930, also known as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, was a protectionist trade measure signed into law in the United States by President Herbert Hoover on June 17, 1930. Named after its chief congressional sponsors, Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley, the act raised tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods in an effort to shield American industries from foreign competition during the onset of the Great Depression, which had started in October 1929.

Hoover signed the bill against the advice of many senior economists, yielding to pressure from his party and business leaders. Intended to bolster domestic employment and manufacturing, the tariffs instead deepened the Depression because the U.S.'s trading partners retaliated with tariffs of their own, leading to U.S. exports and global trade plummeting. Economists and historians widely regard the act as a policy misstep, and it remains a cautionary example of protectionist policy in modern economic debates. It was followed by more liberal trade agreements, such as the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934.

Well that is the theory. 

If this is correct then we should start filling the pinch next year. 

We shall see what happens then. But as far as retaliated tariffs I think only China and EU can do something, but so far they have played the game. 

Let's have this discussion next year and see how things stand because as you mentioned there was inventory pulled forward and that should be finishing soon. 

[Fernando 6,585]

12 hours ago, Vesper said:

Cooking the Inflation and Jobs Numbers

Today on TAP: There are some genuine problems with BLS methods. A hack Trump appointee is not the answer.

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-08-13-cooking-inflation-jobs-numbers-trump-bls/

 

Trump’s appointment of a hack loyalist, E.J. Antoni of the Heritage Foundation, to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics could actually lead to some interesting debates if Trump’s goal were not to rig the data. The BLS derives the Consumer Price Index by sampling tens of thousands of actual prices in different parts of the country, and then weighting them to create a “market basket” of typical consumer purchases. To calculate the unemployment rate, the BLS conducts two different surveys, one of households and the other of employers.

Antoni has objected that the BLS often issues major revisions after the initial CPI numbers, because some sources are slower to report than others. Likewise jobs numbers. He recently called for the BLS to issue its own reports quarterly rather than monthly.

More mainstream critics than Antoni have pointed out that the BLS methodology is outmoded in an era when large retailers keep all of their prices on computers updated minute to minute. MIT economists Alberto Cavallo and Roberto Rigobon have created a “Billion Prices Project,” which scrapes daily online pricing data from retailers to compute real-time inflation. Many other economists have also noted that the employer survey on jobs sometimes contradicts the household survey.

The problem, however, is that Trump did not appoint Antoni to make technical refinements for the sake of better data. He appointed him to cook the numbers. And both things are not possible.

The consumer price numbers that BLS released this week were pretty mixed. The July increase was only 0.2 percent, down from the June rate of 0.3 percent. But core inflation, less food and energy, rose at a 3.1 percent annual rate, which is above the previous several months.

Whatever the eventual effect of Trump’s tariffs, it hasn’t fully shown up in the CPI. So it’s awfully hard, even for Trump, to contend that his enemies have rigged the statistics when the numbers are bad but that the figures are legitimate when they are good.

One of the main consumers of the BLS price data is the Federal Reserve. The Fed looks closely at inflation trends in deciding whether to raise or lower interest rates or keep them the same. The fact that inflation was relatively low in July suggests that the Fed could well make a modest cut in rates at its September meeting, though rising core inflation may cut against that.

The Fed’s economists will be looking intently at any adjustments that Antoni tries to make, either in BLS methods or in revisions after the fact. The Fed system employs some 500 Ph.D. economists and a total of more than 15,000 professional employees, dwarfing the BLS. The Fed could develop its own data series on jobs and prices, reinforcing the role of the Fed as one of the few centers of policy and expertise that Trump doesn’t control. If Antoni succeeds in rigging the BLS numbers, businesses and scholars, as well as the Fed itself, would rely on the Fed’s numbers.

The problem, however, as economist Teresa Ghilarducci points out, is that a variety of laws specify the CPI as the basis for adjustments in everything from Social Security checks, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), annual increases for federal and military pensions, veterans’ benefits, federal tax brackets and penalties, state minimum wages, HUD housing subsidies, and collective-bargaining agreements across the private sector.

So while the Fed can help keep the BLS honest, there is no substitute for data that is free from political manipulation.

Like the article I'm also skeptical of that guy, however the guy they fired was incompetent as well. How is it possible that every month they had major revision on their numbers. 

If anything the past guy rig the BLS numbers. As well this new guy might do the same.....

[Vesper 30,178]

7 hours ago, Fernando said:

Like the article I'm also skeptical of that guy, however the guy they fired was incompetent as well. How is it possible that every month they had major revision on their numbers. 

If anything the past guy rig the BLS numbers. As well this new guy might do the same.....

the numbers are always revised as more data comes in, it has been like that for decades

and Trump can kiss his ludicrous calls for interest rate cuts good-bye

[Vesper 30,178]

US Hits Highest Layoffs Since COVID

https://www.newsweek.com/us-hits-highest-layoffs-since-covid-2111794

U.S. layoffs surged in July to their highest level since the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In July, there were 62,075 job cuts announced, according to a report by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That's a 29 percent jump from June and 140 percent higher than the 25,885 announced in July 2024.

The July figure is well above the post-pandemic average for the month (23,584 between 2021 and 2024) and slightly higher than the past decade's July average of 60,398. It pushes the 2025 total to 806,383 layoffs—a 75 percent increase compared with the same period last year and already 6 percent higher than all of 2024. It's the highest January-to-July figure since 2020, when pandemic shutdowns drove layoffs above 1.8 million.

The surge in layoffs in 2025 is due to a mix of government downsizing, corporate restructuring and the growing effects of artificial intelligence. Public agencies, tech firms and retailers are leading the cuts.

"We are seeing the federal budget cuts implemented by DOGE impact nonprofits and health care in addition to the government. AI was cited for over 10,000 cuts last month, and tariff concerns have impacted nearly 6,000 jobs this year," said Andrew Challenger, a senior vice president and labor expert at Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Where Are the Layoffs Happening?

The majority of layoffs this year have been from the federal government—a total of 292,294 since the year started—as President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues its mission to scale down the size of numerous agencies. There have also been knock-on effects for contractors and organizations reliant on public funding, which the report calls the "DOGE Downstream Impact."

Private sector cuts have been concentrated in industries under structural pressure. Technology and telecom firms are reducing head count as they shift investment toward AI and cloud infrastructure. Retailers have been hit by softer discretionary spending, higher costs and changing consumer habits, prompting store closures. Other sectors above historical layoff norms include finance, business services and transportation, where companies are scaling back capacity after pandemic-era expansions.

Reasons Behind the Cuts

 

Economic conditions—including inflation, shifting demand and global uncertainty—have been cited in more than 170,000 job cuts so far this year. Business restructuring, store or plant closures, and bankruptcies have also played a major role.

Fabian Stephany, an assistant professor for AI and work at the University of Oxford, told Newsweek the current wave of layoffs was best understood as a combination of "late-cycle cost discipline and post-pandemic normalization," rather than a sign of a full-scale employment downturn.

"Many firms are correcting for the overhiring of 2021 to 2022 while protecting margins through productivity gains, some of which are enabled by automation," he said.

Technological change is another driver. Automation and AI have been linked to more than 20,000 layoffs in 2025, with another 10,000 explicitly attributed to AI.

Stephany said AI's immediate effects were most visible in "transactional, routine, and standardized work—particularly in junior roles."

Jason Leverant, the COO and president of AtWork Group, told Newsweek that automation tended to hit jobs that fell into what he called the "Three D's": dull, dirty or dangerous. Many white-collar positions in the "dull" category are already being replaced by AI tools.

Both Leverant and Stephany said AI would keep reshaping the labor market this year. "The likely path is steady, incremental reshaping of roles through attrition and slower hiring, rather than sharp spikes in AI-related layoffs," Stephany said.

Labor Market Outlook

Despite the scale of layoffs, unemployment remains in the low 4 percent range, suggesting that many displaced workers are having luck finding new roles.

But Leverant said that not all workers were likely to transition quickly. "I expect to see extended periods of unemployment for people in middle-management and highly specialized roles where openings are much more limited," he said.

If cuts continue at the current pace, unemployment could edge higher later this year. Leverant said that while the concentration of layoffs in the government sector gave him some confidence in the health of private sector hiring, "if job cuts continue and the unemployment rate rises, it will only spark further concern, uncertainty, and potential volatility in the markets, creating a vicious cycle that we need to break."

[Thor 2,704]

Real wage growth is the reason for a lot of cuts lately. 
 

Inflation being down is because it’s stagnated and people aren’t getting the salaries they were in 21 and 22. 
 

Trumps plan to outgrow this debt in rapid time is an interesting one. I mean - it’s all the world has done the last 30 years. Why not just keep kicking the can down the road? 

[Vesper 30,178]

Trump stirs far-right rage despite FBI deprioritizing extremist threat

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/11/trump-far-right-fbi

Experts say white supremacists have benefited from president’s policies but anger remains among neo-Nazis

Donald Trump has faced an onslaught of criticism from opponents and Maga diehards alike, on issues such as Jeffrey Epstein, the war with Iran, and his steadfast alliance with Israel in the face of genocide. But among the ever dangerous far right, which has generally applauded Trump’s efforts to deport thousands of people a day, his actions of late have stirred rage among a group experts say has benefited greatly from his administration’s law-enforcement pivots.

The FBI, headed by Trump acolyte Kash Patel, has reassigned the jobs of thousands of agents and eviscerated parts of the bureau tasked with investigating rightwing extremists that are considered the most dangerous domestic security threat facing the US today. Those same types, which includes a locus of fascist street-fighting gangs known as active clubs and accelerationist neo-Nazis, increasingly view Trump as an enemy, but are freer than ever to organize – almost entirely due to changes instituted in his latest presidency.

“His alliance with Israel and Netanyahu is obviously problematic for antisemites, and there have always been questions about how dedicated Trump is to the cause of a white America,” said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, referring to American rightwing extremists’ view of the president. “Frankly, white supremacists have never had it so good as they do now under Trump.” Bierich did concede the far right was “never outwardly fond of him”, they have celebrated Trump’s enthusiastic deployment of Ice raids.

On a neo-Nazi Telegram channel that has become a bellwether and influencer for active clubs around the world, Trump’s latest quip declaring he would not provide disaster relief in case of a natural disaster to states that do not support Israel struck a major nerve. “Israel first, America last,” it said in a post viewed several thousands of times by followers, with a headline associated with the story. In another adjacent account, neo-Nazis went further: “The fact that they even tried to put that in is disgusting.”

In recent years, neo-fascist groups such as Patriot Front – heavily allied to the active club movement – have used natural disaster cleanups as a way to recruit and launder their image as white saviors to “European” Americans. “What we know is these groups are emboldened and the federal government appears to be abandoning its efforts to monitor and surveil racists and white supremacists,” Beirich said. “They can certainly act with less concern about FBI interference, and we should expect there will be more violence and more activity on the streets from these groups given what the federal government has shut down.”

 

One of the president’s first moves, mere hours after his second inauguration in January, was to give full pardons to 1,500 people involved in the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill. Even research grants for academic and government researchers looking at the de-radicalization of extremists of every political persuasion have felt the force of Trump’s budgetary cuts. Yet with this backdrop of helpful policies, far-right activists have found reasons to part with Trump’s agenda. A near full-scale war with Iran earlier in the summer also set off a flurry of posts among some of the most hardcore and popular neo-Nazis who saw the latest geopolitical venture as a new, costly Iraq war.

“Both sides spent years hyperventilating over the undisputed lethality of Iran,” wrote one influential neo-Nazi propagandist channel on Telegram. “I’m just happy it doesn’t look like whites will be dying for Israel.” But it was a recent American Eagle ad featuring the actor Sydney Sweeney – one alluding to her jeans as a reference to physical, genetic genes – that has enraged the online hordes of the far right. One called it Maga’s blatant attempt to win back their support through “white coded media” in service of a broader agenda.

“Some Telegram propagandists have claimed that the Trump administration is explicitly attempting to appeal to white Americans to manipulate them further,” said Joshua Fisher-Birch, an analyst and expert on online extremists, “whether economically, politically, or while planning a new war.” According to Fisher-Birch, an influential channel with more than 2,000 subscribers within the far-right Telegram ecosystem, carried out a poll in mid-July about Trump and the Epstein files, which showed that 70% of its respondents said they did not support the president.

“The irony is that they should be celebrating Trump regardless,” said Beirich, “for the Ice raids, for appointing extremists like Darren Beattie and Stephen Miller, for putting Confederate statutes back up and assaulting DEI, not to mention the pardons.” Beattie, a senior state department official, has been linked to white nationalism, while Miller has been widely seen as the architect for the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policy and has long been lambasted for his racism “and white supremacist ideology”.

Beirich cited how Patriot Front and Blood Tribe, another public facing neo-Nazi group, are marching on American streets with regularity, while people like former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio – formerly imprisoned for his role in the January 6 attacks – have become regular speaking fixtures in official Republican circles. Fisher-Birch agreed that the far right was feeling the moment. “Many extreme right groups and propagandists certainly think that they have more latitude now than compared to a year ago,” he said. “However, it is also important to note that some groups are worried about being targeted for their antisemitism.”

Even so, there are others in the extremist world who still view Trump and the broader US government with skepticism, undeterred by recent FBI changes or the president’s general tone towards them. For example, the Base, an internationally proscribed neo-Nazi terrorist group with roots in the US, still sees Trump as a problem. “We don’t expect leniency from the Trump administration,” it wrote on one of its accounts earlier this year, referring to a nationwide crackdown on the group in the past. “It was Trump’s [department of justice] which conducted an aggressive nationwide dragnet targeting members of the Base in 2020.” It added: “By comparison, political pressure against the Base was minimal when Biden was president.”