Month: May 2025

The Friday File: The longest straight line walk in the world starts in Liberia, and goes through Ivory Coast, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Niger, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and then China. The length of the walk…

The tax and spending bill recently passed by the House will, according to the CBO, increase the national debt by $3.3 trillion through 2034. However, the bill isn’t fiscally expansionary. This is because the sum of the tax cut extensions,…

The 10-year Treasury term premium is up 60bps since early April and is 100bps above its past decade norm. The rise isn’t due to expectations of faster growth, nor rising inflation expectations, the usual culprits behind rising rates. The rising…

During the first year of Russia’s Ukraine invasion, Russian casualties averaged 10,800/month. In CY2023, they averaged 20,800/month. In CY2024, 35,270/month, and through 4/25, they’re exceeding 40,000/month. While Putin may preach Russian victory inevitability, casualties approaching one million and staggering equipment…

Last night, the House passed the Republican tax and spending package 215-214. Two Republicans voted with the Democrats, one voted present, two didn’t vote. All Democrats voted nay. That’s 432 votes. As for the remaining three, the Republicans got lucky.…

In 2024, 40% of homebuilder sales were to first-time buyers, 15 percentage points above the 2017-2019 average. Conversely, the comparable percentage for existing home sales was 24%, down from the 2017-2019 33.3% average. Why? The median price of a new…

While Emerson tells us that “intellectual consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”, what really bugs me is that the trade deficit is perceived as terrible because other nations are somehow ripping us off. However, yawningly large and rising budget…

While sadly inevitable, Moody’s finally joined other credit rating agencies and reduced US sovereign credit to one notch below triple-A. Swelling deficits, a peace-time deficit-to-GDP ratio exceeding 6%, a debt-to-GDP ratio nearing its WWII high, and with lawmakers working on…

The Friday File: In 2024, the Home Depot department with the most sales was not the fourth largest department by revenue, Building Materials at $12.4 billion, or Kitchen at $7.2 billion, Plumbing at $12.4 billion or the second largest department…