Tag: economy

Coming Soon – Federal Red Ink Barfing Skyward Like You’ve Never Seen

Self-evidently, the news has been overwhelmingly focused on Washington’s current endeavor to unload $200 billion of imperial destruction upon Iran and its neighbors around the Persian Gulf. Well, and also upon all other users of petroleum products, LNG, LPGs, nitrogen fertilizer, food, helium, semiconductors, manufactured goods and most everything else anywhere on the planet.

Accordingly, comparatively scant attention has been given to another recent milestone on America’s headlong dash to fiscal disaster. To wit, the public debt crossed the $39 trillion mark and nearly in the blink of an eye, too. Just four years ago, we were at the $29 trillion level and nine years ago at the $19 trillion mark.

Needless to say, the “peacemaker” in the Oval Office has played no small role in this skyward ascent of the public debt. During his first term, the public debt grew by a staggering $8 trillion and already another $3 trillion has been racked-up during his second go-round.

Stated differently, the King of Debt has surely earned his place in the history books. The $11 trillion of new debt on his watch to date already accounts for 28% of all the public debt incurred in America since George Washington!

Then again, he still has got nearly three years to go, and the debt impact of both the OBBBA and the impending financial and human bloodbath in the Persian Gulf are just getting started.

Indeed, as to the latter it’s as clear as the orange glow around his cranium that the Donald is doing another round of fake rope-a-dope negotiations with the Iranians. That’s to buy time to get the 82nd Airborne, various amphibious landing ships and other invasionary forces in place for his next “win”.

That’s right.The fool in the Oval Office is actually going to attempt to seize the Alamo Kharg Island. That will mean military chaos in the Gulf, unprecedented turmoil in the global economy and soaring military expenditures, which will make the pending $200 billion DOD supplemental look like a mere down-payment.

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Shoppers face surge in ‘dynamic pricing’ as supermarkets adopt digital technology to change grocery prices based on demand

Shoppers may face higher prices as retailers look set to use digital labels that could change the cost of products based on demand.

The Bank of England warned that these ‘market-responsive pricing tools’ will be adopted by one in three companies in the coming year, up from one in five in the year before.

These ‘dynamic prices’ will change based on algorithms and AI, with the labels adjusting to ‘demand, capacity or competitors’ prices’, according to a business survey commissioned by the Bank.

Factors that could affect these prices may take into account the weather, the time of day, and how busy the shop is. For example, if it is a hot day, then the price of sunglasses may be increased.

This is something that online retailers, like Amazon, have already adopted. Hospitality and travel businesses do much the same, with prices changing based on popularity or times of the year. 

The study then suggests that electronic labels in supermarkets could be the next frontier – something which is ‘already widespread in Europe’.

UK retail food prices are already 38 per cent higher than pre-Covid levels and experts fear further significant increases if disruption caused by the war in Iran continues.

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Patronizing Democrat MA Governor Maura Healey Uses Donuts to Explain Soaring Energy Costs to Suffering Constituents

Fresh off being booed on Red Sox opening day alongside radical Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, leftist Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey thinks the suffering her constituents are facing with rising energy costs is a joke.

She appears to think voters are too dumb to understand economics and, instead of talking to residents like adults, she pulled out donuts to dumb down her patronizing explanation.

“Energy bills are high. Everyone can see that. So lowering your energy bills is my top priority. Now, how does that happen? That’s a little more complicated,” Healey began.

“So let’s talk about energy in a way that everyone understands— with munchkins.”

“Picture this: you’re at work or school, wherever. It’s 9 AM, and no one’s eaten breakfast. Someone shows up with one of these. Demand is high.”

“Everyone wants a munchkin or two or three, but we’ve only got 25. That’s where we’re headed with energy. So how do we fix that? See this glazed munchkin? That’s wind.”

“Massachusetts already has an offshore wind project lowering our energy bills as we speak. And we need more. It’s affordable, homegrown energy, and it’ll create thousands of jobs.”

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NBC Report Drops Truth Bomb: Newsom’s Lies About Gas Prices Are Pure Gaslighting

Rising tensions tied to the war in Iran and its impact on global oil shipping routes are contributing to higher gas prices across the United States, with California drivers facing some of the steepest costs in the country.

The national average price for gasoline has now surpassed $4 per gallon, while California’s statewide average is hovering just below $6.

In several locations across the state, prices have climbed even higher, widening the gap between California and the rest of the nation.

As consumers question why California continues to pay significantly more at the pump, analysts point to a combination of long-standing state policies and factors that remain less clearly understood.

Dr. Severin Borenstein, faculty director of the Energy Institute at Haas at the University of California, Berkeley, said California’s higher fuel taxes, environmental fees, and unique gasoline blend account for roughly half of the price difference compared to the national average.

However, he said those factors alone do not fully explain the current price gap.

“The difference is what I call the mystery gasoline surcharge,” Borenstein said.

According to Borenstein, prior to 2015, California gas prices generally tracked closer to the national average, with an additional 90 cents to $1 per gallon attributed to the state’s taxes and environmental requirements.

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US stock markets fall, oil soars as Trump promises to bomb Iran ‘back to the stone age’

The value of US stock markets fell, while the price of oil soared in early trading on 2 April following US President Donald Trump’s speech in which he vowed to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age.”

The president said on Wednesday evening from the White House that the US would continue its bombing campaign on Iran “until our objectives are fully achieved,” suggesting the war will last longer than expected.

“I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly. We’re going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks – we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Age, where they belong,” Trump vowed.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell some 1.3 percent when the US stock market opened the following morning. The S&P 500 index was also down 1.3 percent, while the Nasdaq composite was down 1.7 percent. Much of the losses were recovered over the course of the trading day.

Oil prices rose sharply and remained high throughout the day. The price of US crude rose to $113 – a 13 percent gain.

Brent crude, the international baseline, rose more than eight percent, to $109 per barrel.

US stock markets rallied, and the price of oil fell to start the week, after Trump stated on Sunday he was having “serious discussions” with a “new and more reasonable regime in Tehran.”

But the price of oil has risen following Trump’s remarks, which underscored that the war will not end soon and the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed indefinitely.

Since the US and Israel launched a war on Iran on 28 February, the strategic waterway has effectively remained closed due to the threat of Iranian attacks and soaring insurance premiums for vessels wishing to transit it.

Energy prices have since skyrocketed, as Gulf oil exports through the strait have ground to a halt.

During his Wednesday address, Trump expressed no urgency in opening Hormuz, instead criticizing European nations suffering from fuel shortages for refusing to send their own warships to reopen it.

“To those countries that can’t get fuel – many of which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, we had to do it ourselves – I have a suggestion,” he said.

“Number one, buy oil from the United States of America; we have plenty. We have so much. And number two, build up some delayed courage … Go to the strait and just take it. Protect it. Use it for yourselves. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done.”

Trump claimed that Hormuz would likely “just open up naturally” at the close of the war.

He called rising gas prices in the US a “short-term” matter, while claiming “the United States has never been better prepared economically to confront this threat.”

Regarding Trump’s threats, Esmail Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said Thursday that Tehran has “no choice but to fight back strongly.”

“We will not tolerate this vicious cycle of war, negotiations, ceasefire, and then repeating the same pattern,” he said in a statement reported by state media. “This is catastrophic not only for Iran, but for the entire region and beyond.”

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Beneath the Big Lie About Iran – An Economy That’s Been Shrinking for 50 Years

At some point it is wise indeed to pay heed to the numbers – and that’s overwhelmingly true with respect to the battling narratives about the Donald’s Iran War now raging in the Persian Gulf. The fact is, the Iranian “threat” is almost entirely an ideological and political sham confected by Bibi Netanyahu and his neocon fifth columns on the banks of the Potomac.

They would have you believe that Iran is some kind of super-Evil Empire that is a military threat to the whole world, including way over here 10,000 kilometers from Tehran.

We beg to differ. Completely. And Defiantly, Too.

At the end of the day, a realistic, deliverable, sustainable military threat to the Homeland territory of America – the only valid reason for military action by a peaceful Republic – must necessarily be anchored in a robust economic base of GDP. That’s the only place from which the advanced technology, professional military manpower, abundant tax revenues and other economic resources needed to support a massive War Machine can be obtained.

Yet without massive defense budgets and weaponry – both a nuclear first strike capacity and an overwhelming conventional armada of invasion and occupation – no nation on planet earth would have the capacity to threaten America. Not way over here inside the safe harbor of the great Atlantic and Pacific Moats.

Based on the hard economic data for the last 53 years, therefore, one thing is crystal clear: When it comes to the economic girth needed to support a true military threat to US citizens on American soil from sea-to-shinning-sea, Iran is, was and always has been a Flyspeck.

And, ironically, Washington’s decades of brutal economic warfare against Iran has drastically weakened its economic strength relative to that of the US, even as it has solidified the rule of the religious mullahs, who’s theocratic regime has further throttled Iran’s economy.

Thus, back on the eve of the oil crisis in 1973 and notwithstanding 20-years of the Shah’s systematic larceny, US GDP was only 8.4X that of Iran. Likewise, Iran’s respectable real GDP per capita of $13,239 was nearly half that of the USA at $28,500.

At the time, the Iranian $410 billion economy ($2025 USD) was also the most robust in the middle east by a long shot. Stated in 2025 USD, the Iranian economy was orders of magnitude larger than any of its regional rivals:

1973 Real GDP In 2025 $:

  • Iran: $410 billion.
  • Saudi Arabia:$170 billion.
  • Egypt: $130 billion.
  • Israel:$75 billion.
  • Syria: $30 billion.
  • Jordan: $10 billion.

But that’s all she wrote. For nearly the entire past half-century the girth of Iran’s economy has been steadily and relentlessly shrinking relative to that of the United States. Accordingly, there is now (2025) a staggering difference in the final column, which measures the real GDP of the US in 2025$ versus that of Iran. Today that crucial ratio now stands at 35.4X or more than four times greater than it was in 1973.

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The not-so-hidden agenda behind Mamdani’s budget bumbling

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is making a show of cutting the budget, with videos of him looking for millions under sofa cushions.

He’s pretending he’s leaving no stone unturned to close a $5.4 billion budget gap.

Don’t buy it. These are token gestures meant to suggest the city has cut all it can, giving Albany cover to justify what he hopes comes next: Mamdani’s tax hikes on high earners and employers.

Sure, cutting low-value government spending deserves some credit, but the problem is that Mamdani’s savings are mostly speculative or trivial.

Even the largest cut so far, $100 million from removing ineligible health-care dependents, would only materialize if auditors find such dependents.

And even if he reaps all the $1.7 billion in savings that he’s seeking, it would still leave that $5.4 billion hole untouched.

In other words, his budget assumes those savings are real, even though they may never materialize, leaving not a $5.4 billion but a $7.1 billion gap.

Meanwhile, he’d be spending on things like a three-year, $1.86 billion, no-bid deal with the hotel industry to provide homeless shelters, including for migrants, who now have no time limit on their stay.

He somehow found another $260 million for a new “Mayor’s Office of Community Safety,” an office with just two staffers.

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Chicago moves toward reparations with bus tours and town halls as $150M deficit looms

Chicago took its first step after establishing a reparations task force two years ago.

Now, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to hold a public engagement forum called Repair Chicago to “gather lived experiences of harm of Black Chicagoans” in an effort to provide reparations for Black residents.

“Your experience is evidence, and we’ve placed it at the center of our work,” Johnson said. “By engaging directly with residents, we are grounding this work in the voices and lived realities of the people it is meant to serve.”

The first event took place Tuesday, and two more events are scheduled through April.

Johnson’s office announced the Repair Chicago effort would involve “bus tours, panel discussions, town halls and hearings,” helping the task force members gather input for the administration’s reparations study. 

“The community engagement process will gather input from Chicagoans across the city to better understand Black Chicagoans’ experiences across generations and how systemic racism has shaped their lives, opportunities and well-being,” Johnson said.

The move comes two years after Johnson named his chief equity officer, Carla Kupe, to lead the reparations task force with $500,000 in funding. 

In 2024, Johnson signed an executive order establishing a reparations task force of 40 members that addresses “historical harms committed against Black Chicagoans and their ancestors through the form of reparations.”

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California’s $20 fast food wage yields higher prices, fewer jobs, more automation

Two years ago, a hotly contested law imposing a $20-per-hour minimum wage on franchised fast food outlets took effect.

The legislation, Assembly Bill 1228, emerged from months of intense political conflict, pitting fast food behemoths such as McDonalds against service worker unions, arguing not only over the wage itself but what the industry saw as an effort to undercut its business model.

Eventually the industry agreed to a higher wage in exchange for unions leaving the franchise system unmolested and the creation of a commission to oversee wages and working conditions.

Ever since, fast food corporations and labor interests have jousted over the law’s impact, with both waving economic reports to bolster their positions.

The industry warned that the FAST Act, as it was dubbed, would push fast food prices upward and employment opportunities downward. Unions and their allies contended it would benefit fast food workers with few, if any, negative impacts.

The situation cried out for independent evaluation, not only to settle the arguments but to provide guidance on the consequences of political intervention on wages in any industry.

Thankfully, we may have that study.

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The Donald Gets a Double-Whammy

It sure looks like the Donald is on the receiving end of a double-whammy. His victory declaration in Iran looks to rank right up there with George Dubya Bush’s “mission accomplished” pratfall on the deck of a US aircraft carrier in 2003; and that also means that his SOTU boasting about defeating “Joe Biden’s” inflation and getting the gas pump price under $2 per gallon is out the window, too.

What’s back in play front and center, therefore, is the AFFORDABILITY issue come November. The Dems have no clue about how to fix it, of course, but they sure as hell will be brutally pounding the GOP candidates and the Donald with the latter’s own bogus hot air on the matter.

For want of doubt, consider the conflagration in the global oil markets at this very moment. At ground zero in the Persian Gulf, the major crude oil from the region have already shot the moon.

Thus, Oman crude prices are up to $154/barrel, crossing $150 for the first time ever. At the same time, Dubai crude is up to $130/barrel, while Brent is trading at $110.

This means, in turn, that the gap between Oman and world prices is off-the-charts wide, and now stands at 30% or $44 per barrel. By comparison, before the Iran War, the difference between all benchmarks was just $5 per barrel during January and February.

In very short-run, of course, Brent and WTI are priced based on US and European supply conditions, while the actual disruption is concentrated in the Middle East, meaning they do not fully capture the severity of the physical shortage. YET.

On the other hand, global crude oil markets everywhere and always eventually get arbitraged, causing the major marker grades to fully reflect worldwide supply, demand and inventory conditions. So unless the Gulf is re-opened within a matter of days, the marker grades will soon rise toward these Gulf prices as global inventories continue to be liquidated.

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