Let’s see… an administration that has weaponized every agency for political gain, and a BLS whose monthly reports are almost universally too high and are revised substantially downward in later months, issues a big positive jobs report the month before the presidential election, and then the media all takes the same line that the jobs report supports Harris’ economic agenda?
A hotter-than-expected jobs report released Friday sets up a contrast for the final month of the 2024 campaign as Democrats and Republicans prepare their closing economic arguments.
Bills of lading, the digital receipts of freight containers, show that the delivery mechanisms for insulin and weight-loss drugs rely on East Coast ports for incoming trade.
“Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are both heavily reliant on the Port of Norfolk,” said William George, director of research at ImportGenius, which tracks the customs data.
In the past year, Novo Nordisk has imported through Norfolk 419 twenty-foot equivalent unit, or TEU, containers worth of pharmaceuticals and injection devices that contain semaglutide, a compound in its branded weight-loss drugs, according to George. “Novo fine syringes commonly used for insulin injections come into the U.S. by ocean freight as well,” he said.
Novo Nordisk has raked in nearly $50 billion in sales from Wegovy and Ozempic, with most of that revenue coming from the U.S., its CEO said in recent testimony before the U.S. Senate.
Ugh. Here we go. Stock up on stuff. Estimates are that every day of the strike will take a week to recover from. Remember the supply chain disruptions of the pandemic? That’s what we’re in for, but worse. And when leadership matters, Biden is on the beach, Harris is hiding, and Buttigieg is doing debate prep with Walz.
Tens of thousands of dockworkers have gone on strike indefinitely at ports across much of the US, threatening significant trade and economic disruption ahead of the presidential election and the busy holiday shopping season.
Members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) walked out on Tuesday at 14 major ports along the east and gulf coasts, halting container traffic from Maine to Texas.
The action marks the first such shutdown in almost 50 years.
President Joe Biden has the power to suspend the strike for 80 days for further negotiations, but the White House has said he is not planning to act.
EW YORK (AP) — U.S. ports from Maine to Texas could shut down Tuesday if a union representing about 45,000 dockworkers carries through with a threatened strike.
A lengthy shutdown could raise prices on goods around the country and potentially cause shortages and price increases at big and small retailers alike as the holiday shopping season — along with a tight presidential election — approaches.
“First and foremost, we can expect delays to market. And those delays depend on really what the commodities are and priorities at the ports and how quickly things move,” said Mark Baxa, president of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals.
For over a decade, business was booming in Hollywood, with studios battling to catch up to new companies like Netflix and Hulu. But the good times ground to a halt in May 2023, when Hollywood’s writers went on strike.
The strikes lasted multiple months and marked the first time since the 1960s that both writers and actors joined forces – effectively shutting down Hollywood production. But rather than roaring back, in the one year since the strikes ended, production has fizzled.
Projects have been cancelled and production was cut across the city as jobs have dried up, with layoffs at many studios – most recently at Paramount. It had a second round of layoffs this week, as the storied movie company moves to cut 15% of its workforce ahead of a merger with the production company Skydance.
Unemployment in film and TV in the United States was at 12.5% in August, but many think those numbers are actually much higher, because many film workers either do not file for unemployment benefits because they’re not eligible or they’ve exhausted those benefits after months of not working.
As a whole, the number of US productions during the second quarter of 2024 was down about 40% compared to the same period in 2022. Globally, there was a 20% decline over that period, according to ProdPro, which tracks TV and film productions.
RENTON, Wash. — Cash-strapped Boeing is facing mounting costs from an ongoing machinist strike as workers push for higher pay. A failure to get a deal done could be even more expensive.
In the shadow of a factory outside Seattle where Boeing makes its best-selling planes, picketing Boeing machinists told CNBC they have saved up money and have taken or are considering taking side jobs in landscaping, furniture moving or warehouse work to make ends meet if the strike is goes on much longer.
The work stoppage by Boeing’s factory workers in the Pacific Northwest just entered its second week. The financial cost of the strike on Boeing depends on how long it lasts, though ratings agencies have warned that the company could face a downgrade if it drags on too long.
A major strike is on the horizon for thousands of maritime workers, posing a threat to East Coast ports responsible for billions of dollars of goods.
The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), the largest union of maritime workers in North America, has vocalized plans to go on strike at all of its Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports Oct. 1 if a new contract agreement can’t be reached with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX). The union is arguing for better wages and continued protections against automation and new technology in its terminals.
“A sleeping giant is ready to roar on Tuesday, October 1, 2024, if a new Master Contract Agreement is not in place,” ILA President Harold J. Daggett said in a statement Monday. “My members have been preparing for over a year for that possibility of a strike.”
However, data from a Civic Science student loan study revealed that more than one-third of Americans are saying they don’t plan on making any repayments — a number that increases to 50% for lower-income respondents who are making less than $25,000 annually.
The study also highlighted that, since the repayments resumed last October, only 33% of Americans have actually resumed regular payments of their student loans.
It is worth noting why this is an issue. The combination of lucrative union contracts, regulation, improvements in productivity, stagnant demand, and the rise of manufacturing prowess controlled by hostile nations have all combined to make heavy industrial manufacturing in America very difficult to make a profit. The union contracts and regulation lock American companies into a past that prevents them from adapting to the future. In this case, U.S. Steel is a vital American core business that must be kept on-shore. When war comes again on a large scale, we must be able to produce our own equipment and steel mills don’t spring up overnight.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has voiced his opposition to Nippon Steel buying U.S. Steel, but the federal government appears to be in no hurry to block the deal.
White House officials earlier this month did not deny that the president would formally block the acquisition. But the necessary report from the government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has yet to be submitted to the White House.
“It’s their process — it’s independent,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday. “We have to see the recommendation from CFIUS. That’s the process.”
This story paints this as a victory, but it is not. It is the acceptance of a culture ruled by crooks and the people who coddle them at the expense of law-abiding citizens.
A year ago, America’s stores declared a shoplifting epidemic. They closed stores in major cities, hired extra security, locked up key merchandise and declared big losses in their financial statements.
This year, retailers are telling a very different story — or no story at all. It’s as if the shoplifting crisis suddenly vanished.
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Last year, Target said a scourge of petty theft and organized groups stealing merchandise dented its profit by more than $500 million. Target also closed nine stores, saying “theft and organized retail crime” threatened worker and customer safety and made business unsustainable.
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Stores have also added ways to prevent theft, which may have been effective at reducing the problem, even if they frustrated shoppers. Companies locked up products and removed self-checkout stations.
Starbuck said Lowe’s is committed to ending identity-based employee resource groups and replacing them with a single group for employees of all backgrounds. Lowe’s also plans to limit its sponsorship to issues related to its business, such as affordable housing and disaster relief; end participation in Pride and other socially related community events; and stop submitting data to the Human Rights Campaign, he wrote.
The company joins firms such as Harley-Davidson, Tractor Supply and Deere in reining in their DEI programs in recent months after being targeted by Starbuck amid a broader corporate reassessment of a fast-shifting legal landscape marked by rising risk. Companies are increasingly facing pressure to scale back or do away with DEI initiatives from both external critics and U.S. courts as a wave of legal action challenges policies at scores of companies, including giants such as Starbucks, Meta and Pfizer.
I absolutely hate these fees. At the same time, I do not want to invite the federal government even further into our lives to regulate them. Let the market figure it out. And if you really hate surprise fees, have you seen the fees our governments charge?
Lawmakers want to crack down on “junk fees,” but restaurants are trying to stay out of the fight.
Surcharges or fees covering everything from credit card processing to gratuities to “inflation” have become more popular on restaurant checks in recent years.
Last year, 15% of restaurant owners added surcharges or fees to checks because of higher costs, according to the National Restaurant Association. In the second quarter, 3.7% of restaurant transactions processed by Square included a service fee, more than double the beginning of 2022, according to a recent report from the company.
Opponents of the practice say those fees and surcharges may surprise customers, hoodwinking them into paying more for their meals at a time when their wallets are already feeling thin. Fed-up diners compiled spreadsheets via Reddit of restaurants in Los Angeles, Chicago and D.C. charging hidden fees. Even the Onion took a swing at the practice, publishing a satirical story in May with the headline “Restaurant Check Includes 3% Surcharge To Provide Owner’s Sugar Baby With Birkin.”
The Biden administration has broadly targeted so-called junk fees, like an undisclosed service charge for concert tickets or unexpected resort fees when checking out of a hotel. This fall, the Federal Trade Commission is expected to publish a rule banning businesses from “charging hidden and misleading fees.”
This is happening all over the world. As the U.S. and European countries pile on the regulations that make our cars prohibitively expensive, the rest of the world is still looking for good, reliable, cheap transportation. China is filling the void. It is yet another area where the U.S. is ceding global leadership.
Last year, China was the leading car supplier to Mexico, exporting $4.6 billion worth of vehicles to the country, according to the Mexican Ministry of Economy. Even customers wary of EVs have been won over by affordable price tags. Tesla rival BYD sells its Dolphin Mini in Mexico for around 398,800 pesos, or about $21,300, a little over half the price of the cheapest Tesla.
“The Chinese automakers came to the country very aggressively,” said Juan Carlos Baker, former Mexican deputy minister for international trade. “They have very good promotions. It’s a good product that sells at a very reasonable price.”
Some Chinese EV makers, including BYD, have been looking for a further foothold in North America by exploring factory sites in the Mexican states of Durango, Jalisco and Nuevo Leon. The foreign investment would be an economic boost for Mexico. BYD has claimed that a plant there would create around 10,000 jobs.
There’s no room for price gouging in a ultra-competitive business like retail, Target CEO Brian Cornell said on Wednesday.
In an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” the retail chief disputed campaign talking points accusing grocers of inflating prices. He said retailers have to be responsive to customers or risk losing business.
He was asked by CNBC’s Joe Kernen, who referred to comments by Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and asked if Target or its competitors ever benefit from price gouging. Harris last week proposed the first-ever federal ban on “corporate price-gouging in the food and grocery industries,” saying some companies are charging excessively and fueling household inflation.
“We’re in a penny business,” Cornell responded, noting the small profit margins in the retail industry. He described the many places that customers can turn to check for lower prices or to find merchandise elsewhere, from going to stores to browsing on their phones to compare the prices of a gallon of milk at different retailers.
Sadly, Kamala Harris and the Leftists have been successful in pivoting the discussion away from inflation to corporate behavior. The reality is that prices have gone up substantially under Biden/Harris. This is textbook inflation. Inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods. This causes the value of the currency to decrease because it takes more money to buy the same value. Inflation cannot be caused by the private economy because that economy does not control the money. Government does. Inflation is caused by the government printing or spending more money than the economy can naturally absorb. In the case of our current economy, it is both. The federal government is spending a gargantuan amount of money, but since they don’t have enough tax revenue to cover the spending, they are just printing money to cover the cost.
The only real fix for inflation is to dramatically reduce government spending. The reason that the Democrats don’t want to do that is because federal spending has become a gigantic gravy train for millions of people. If they cut it off, it will anger those people. So the resistance to doing what needs to be done to fix inflation is not an economic one… it’s a political one.
Drastically reducing federal spending would also trigger a recession. All of that spending goes somewhere and if it is cut off, those jobs and businesses go away. It will take some time for the Invisible Hand of our economy to reallocate those resources to more productive means. It would be painful. But it is also the only way and the alternative is that we continue to devalue our currency to the point that there is no wealth left for anyone except political elites. This is where the current path leads and has been replicated dozens of times in modern history.
I know this seems elementary to most of our readers, but this kind of simple economic understanding is being lost. A natural result of the decline of education in America is that we have two generations of people who have not been taught the very basic understanding of how our government and economy works. And yes, I believe that our education was intentionally changed to achieve the level of ignorance necessary for communism to take root.
There’s some bad news ahead for the nation’s car owners, with a new report forecasting that auto insurance — one of the biggest drivers of inflation this year — will continue to rise in 2024. In fact, residents of three states could see their coverage rates spike by 50% in 2024.
That’s according to a new report from Insurify, a company that provides data about auto insurance rates. The typical U.S. insurance policy will jump 22% this year to an average annual premium of $2,469 by year-end, the report found. That comes after drivers saw their policies jump 24% in 2023, it noted.
The three states where insurance rates could jump by more than 50% this year are California, Minnesota and Missouri, the Insurify report found. Drivers in those states could see their rates rise by 54%, 61% and 55%, respectively.
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First, the costs paid by insurance providers to repair vehicles after an accident, such as for labor and parts, have increased more than 40%, and insurers are passing those increases onto drivers. Secondly, because lawyers are more often involved in handling accident claims than in prior years, settlements are increasing, which also boosts insurance costs.
Our weak economy has been propped up by government spending fueled by borrowing. That gravy train is threatening to slow down as the interest to pay that debt balloons. We are headed for a very bad time. None of what we are arguing about now will matter when the national debt crushes the economy. Neither Kamala nor Trump seem to give a dang. Frankly, why would they? The American people don’t seem to give a dang either.
The broad market index dropped 1.84% to end at 5,346.56. The Nasdaq Composite lost 2.43% to close at 16,776.16, bringing the decline for the tech-heavy index from its recent all-time high to more than 10%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 610.71 points, or 1.51%, to finish at 39,737.26. At its session low, the 30-stock index was down 989 points.
Stocks sank after July job growth in the U.S. slowed more than expected, while the unemployment rate rose to the highest since October 2021. Nonfarm payrolls grew by just 114,000 last month, the Labor Department reported, a slowing from 179,000 jobs added in June and below the 185,000 expected by economists polled by Dow Jones. The unemployment rate increased to 4.3%.
The 10-year Treasury yield fell to its lowest since December as investors flooded into bonds for safety on the fear the Federal Reserve made a mistake this week by keeping interest rates at current levels.
Airlines continue to feel the pressure of rising costs and a fickle consumer. There are two interesting moves in the news. The first is Southwest:
Earlier Thursday, Southwest announced that it will do away with its open seating plan and offer some seats on its Boeing aircraft that have extra legroom and add overnight flights, the biggest changes to its business model in its more than five decades of flying. The changes, which start next year, would make Southwest more like its network carrier rivals.
Open seating is a key differentiator and facilitates their boarding methodology too. They are abandoning this differentiator so that they can upsell better seating like other airlines do. Personally, I dislike open seating, but I know a lot of loyal Southwest fliers who swear by it. Will it work for Southwest or will they be just another airline? Time will tell.
“We’ve used a lot of sticks. We’ve got to put some more carrots in place and make sure that our product is available wherever customers want to buy it,” Isom said at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions conference on Wednesday.
American in February said it would limit some travel agency bookings from being eligible to earn AAdvantage frequent flyer miles. Isom said Wednesday that the airline would reverse that decision.
“That’s off,” Isom said. “We’re not doing that because it would create confusion and disruption for our end customer.”
After terrible earnings, American is backing off on a sales strategy to cut out travel agents and aggregator booking sites. The strategy pushed a lot of potential customers away who buy through those channels.
Personally, I am a Delta flier and most familiar with them. I’ve been a perennial platinum, occasionally diamond, flier for 20 years. The changes that Delta has made in recent years is making me fly with them less. The benefits for being a frequent flier are less attractive and harder to get. Meanwhile, their ticket prices are often higher. This has me shopping flights instead of just going with Delta. I know a number of other Delta fliers who are doing the same. If the experience is the same as any other airline, then why bother being loyal?
I don’t know what the answer is for airlines. They seem to have figured out the capacity/demand issue. I rarely see an empty plane anymore. The availability and quality of remote meeting technology has raised the bar for when business travel is necessary. Leisure travelers are very cost conscious. I expect that the only solution is further consolidation of the airline market and further erosion of routes until they reach reliable profitability. The result will be fewer flight options for consumers and an even worse travel experience.
At the end of March, six months after the hiatus ended, nearly 20 million borrowers were making their payments as scheduled. But almost 19 million were not, leaving their accounts delinquent, in default or still on pause, according to the latest Education Department data.
“The nonpayment rate really is emblematic of a system that’s not doing its job,” said Persis Yu, the managing counsel for the Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy group.
Some 7 million borrowers with federally managed loans were at least 30 days overdue on their payments at the end of 2023. That’s the highest delinquency rate since 2016, as far back as the department’s public records go. Because of a policy adopted by the Biden administration, those borrowers will face no penalties for their nonpayment until October at the earliest.
Millions more had their accounts frozen through deferment or forbearance (which allows borrowers to temporarily stop making payments), and nearly 6 million borrowers remain mired in defaults that began before the pandemic.
Biden’s economy continues to sting. Equity in a home is nice for your net worth, but it doesn’t pay the bills every month. And as house values go up, so do all of the things associated with the price of the home (replacement value, repair costs, etc.).
As home prices soar, property owners are sitting on historic levels of home equity. The average homeowner’s equity has soared by $28,000 just over the past year — growing to an average of about $305,000, according to Corelogic.
But even many of those lucky homeowners are increasingly struggling with the rising costs of home insurance premiums, home repairs, and property taxes. And they can’t afford to move.
Lower-income, older people, and people of color are among the most vulnerable. Their options for moving or downsizing are increasingly limited with high mortgage rates and a scarcity of smaller, accessible homes.
The number of cost-burdened homeowners — those who spent more than 30% of their income on housing and utilities — rose by about three million people between 2019 and 2022. Most of this increase was among those who make less than $30,000 a year. A full 30% of Black and 28% of Hispanic homeowners are cost-burdened, compared to 21% of white homeowners, the Harvard report found.
“The all-in monthly costs of the median-priced home in the US are the highest since these data were first collected more than 30 years ago,” the Harvard report found.
The entire purpose of a credit report is to give lenders some insight into whether or not a person will pay them back based on past history. It doesn’t matter where a person’s debt originated. In yet another election year stupid scheme, Biden is setting up the next debt bubble and market crash as he blinds lenders to the credit worthiness of their potential customers.
In a sweeping change that could improve millions of Americans’ ability to own a home or buy a car, the Biden administration on Tuesday proposed a rule to ban medical debt from credit reports.
The rule, announced by Vice President Kamala Harris and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra, comes as President Joe Biden beefs up his efforts to persuade Americans his administration is lowering costs, a chief concern for voters in the upcoming election.
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CFPB’s research estimates that the new rule would allow 22,000 more people to get approved for safe mortgages each year — meaning lenders could also benefit from the positive impact on peoples’ credit scores, by being able to approve more borrowers.
