American women don't like Trump and Trump doesn't like American women - and one of the most stunning stories lost in chaos of Trump's last week in office

American women don't like Trump and Trump doesn't like American women.

Donald has been married three times, once to an American for 4 years. Every other woman he marries is an immigrant.

He made that American – Marla Maples – sign a prenup, a document in which he claimed to be worth $1.17 billion and offered Marla only one million dollars – with no alimony – when they divorced. His child support for Tiffany would continue only to 21 and would stop if Tiffany got a job or joined the army or Peace Corp.

[source: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/06/marla-maple-prenup-donald-trump-marriage ]

Ivana – the mother of three of his children – is rather bizarrely buried in one of his golf courses. Her burial does grant Trump certain tax breaks on the New Jersey golf course where she is buried. “The New Jersey tax code does exempt cemetery land from all taxes, rates, and assessments. Potentially, her grave could save the property from paying a significant sum in a state with high tax rates.”

[source: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ivana-trump-golf-club-burial/ ]

In the 2020 election, it was women who elected Joe Biden and sent Trump back to Mar-a-Lago. 52% of voters were women and they voted for Biden by a 15-point margin – 57% of women voted for Biden and only 42% voted for Trump.

[source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/exit-polls-president.html ]

The day after Trump’s inauguration, the Woman’s March was the largest single-day protest in American history – involving somewhere between 1.0 to 1.6 percent of all Americans – about 3 to 5 million people.

And of course, Donald doesn’t like American women. At least 18 women have accused this man - who bragged that if you are a star you could grab women by the p**** - of sexual harassment. A judge in the Jean Carroll case that found Trump guilty clarified that the charge against him did qualify as rape. Donald owned the Miss Teen Beauty Pageant and bragged about how that allowed him to walk into the dressing area to ogle the teenage girls as they got dressed for the contest.

The policy that Trump is proudest of - appointing Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade - shifted the most personal and important choice a woman can make from that woman to the state.

One of the clearest indications of Donald’s feelings for women was lost in the noise of 3,000 Americans a day dying from COVID and the aftermath of the January 6th assault on the Capitol. The two women he appointed to his Cabinet resigned after that assault on democracy. And what did Donald make a priority amid the turmoil of a riot, an attempted coup, cabinet resignations, and a pandemic?

On January 13, with only one week left in his presidency, Trump rushed through the execution of Lisa Montgomery. Her death marked the first federal execution of a woman in nearly 70 years. Donald made her execution a priority and one of the last things he did before leaving office.
[source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/us/politics/lisa-montgomery-execution.html ]

Donald. American women don’t like him and he doesn’t like them. Given the poor judgement of American men, we can only hope that women again save this country in November. Maybe even a few more men will have sense enough to side with them.

Unemployment, inflation, job creation and COVID-related deaths - before, during, and after a global pandemic.

Pre-pandemic
2019 - low inflation and unemployment and 2 million jobs created


Pandemic
2020 - drop in demand results in huge layoffs and drop in household spending translates into a sharp rise in unemployment - more than 9 million jobs lost - and a drop in inflation along with demand.
2021
Worst year for COVID deaths and yet - as more Americans are vaccinated - economy opens back up. Inflation spikes while the economy creates a record number of jobs, bringing unemployment back down to below 4%.

Recovery
2022
Recovery begins in earnest. The rate of job creation is still higher than any year on record - except for 2021. With the economy so strong and demand so high, inflation begins to drop but is still high. 

Normalization
2023
COVID deaths now - like flu - are part of annual death toll. By yearend, unemployment had been at a sub-4% level for longest stretch since the 1960s. As job creation slows, inflation slowly falls back to a normal range (but still roughly one point higher than pre-pandemic.) 

2024
The economy - and society more broadly - absorbed an historic spike in loss of life and jobs for a couple of years and has largely returned to normal. It is hard to imagine that it could have turned out much better. Easy to believe that it could have turned out much worse. (The economy has never before created more than 7 million jobs in a single year - or even 5 million jobs for that matter. This recovery - getting back to unemployment below 4% - could have easily taken years longer.)

The only comparable wave of death and economic contraction was the Spanish flu in 1918 and after, the recovery from which was a contributing factor to the roaring '20s. There is a very real possibility that these 2020s will represent another roaring 20s. 

Some Stark Contrasts Between The 2024 Candidates

It is 2024 and Americans will choose between Trump and Biden to be president from 2025 to 2029.

Trump - 

• Spent a record amount of time as president tweeting, watching TV and golfing. (Trump sent an average of 33 tweets per day, roughly the number Biden sends each month.)
• Cheated on his third wife (who was home with their newborn) with a porn star (who he paid with campaign funds). He is the favorite of evangelicals.
• Insisted that the national government had no responsibility for COVID response - that a pandemic sweeping across the globe should be the responsibility of state and local governments and not his administration - and had Americans dying of COVID in his last month in office at a rate of more than one 9-11 per day, a pandemic that was particularly deadly for the elderly. He is the favorite of old people.
• Holds the record for worst job creation (or best job destruction) during a presidency since modern records began after the Great Depression. He is the favorite of people who say he's good for the economy.
• Incited an insurrection to overturn the election results from 2020 and has promised to use the office for retribution against political enemies once re-elected. 2 states have already pointed to the 14th amendment as reason to take him off their ballot for the 2024 election. He is the favorite of folks who talk about the importance of the constitution.
• Presided over the worst rise in violent crime in American history. He is the favorite of Americans who want someone tough on crime.

Since Biden took office,

• Weekly rates of death from COVID have fallen to 3% of what they were under Trump. (He treated the COVID response as a national - not a local government - issue.)
• The unemployment rate is at its lowest rate for the longest time since the late 1960s. (He signed a stimulus bill that rapidly lowered unemployment.)
• During Biden's presidency, violent crime has dropped to its lowest levels since the 1960s.
• New business applications are at a record level. Not just up slightly. They are up almost 50% from what they were a short time ago. stats here: https://www.census.gov/econ/bfs/visualizations/interactivegraphs.html 

Biden and Trump hold the record for jobs created during the first term: Biden for the most jobs created and Trump for the most jobs destroyed. (And Biden still has 13 months to build on - or even reverse - this record.)

35 months into Biden's presidency, the economy has created 14.3 million jobs. In Clinton's first term, the economy created 11.6 million and in the first of his terms for which BLS posts numbers, the economy created 11.2 million jobs under FDR. The two worst first terms in modern times were under George W. Bush - the economy created about 100,000 jobs - and Trump, during which the economy lost 2.6 million jobs Thus far, the economy has created 2.7 million more jobs under Biden's presidency compared to Clinton, who has the second best numbers. The gap between Trump and W. Bush is also 2.7 million - but of course Trump's gap is 2.7 million worse than it was under Bush.

Trump is - obviously - the front-runner in this election.

The Percentage of Americans Who Made $1 Million in Wages in 2022

2022 wage information (does not include rental income, profits, earnings or gains from the sale of assets, etc.)

Of Americans who reported an income on W-2 forms,

• 90% earned at least $5,000.
• 50% earned at least $40,847.18 - the median wage.
• 10% earned at least $120,000
• 1% earned at least $350,000
• 0.1% earned at least $1 million
• 0.003% - or more than 5,000 - earned at least $10 million in 2022.
• Only 227 earned $50,000,000 or more.

data:
https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2022

In a Parallel Universe - Feminists' January 6th Attack on the White House that Nancy Pelosi Provoked

In a parallel universe.

On January 6th of 2021, after losing her Democratic majority and Speakership in what she insisted was a rigged election, Nancy Pelosi held a rally that she concluded by telling the feminists and Black Lives Matter crowd gathered that they would march on the White House. She then added, "We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." Some say that her willingness to tell it like it is was one of the chief reasons that she had become the first woman to be Speaker of the House and admired her bold words. Others claimed her speech was incendiary.

The liberal crowd, angry at Donald Trump, began to march towards the White House. The number of secret service members standing at the barricades put up around the White House were wildly outnumbered and soon the protesters overwhelmed them and were in the White House itself. Some of the rioters broke into the Oval Office and put their feet up on Trump's desk, lighting up cigars. Others roamed the halls of the White House chanting, "Donnie!" Portraits were torn from the wall, random items broken or taken. Secret service, wildly outnumbered, continued to retreat from the angry feminists. Meanwhile, Trump and his family hid in a secret location, away from protestors who became more brazen, taking souvenirs from his office and randomly damaging furniture and fixtures in this historic building that did so much to define the world's oldest democracy.

The aftermath of what some called just a peaceful protest and others called a riot led to a flurry of arrests and sentences and Pelosi continued to insist that the protestors who stormed the White House menacingly calling out "Donnie!" had love in their hearts. Others said it was no different than any White House tour. More than a year later, one of the liberal radicals broke into Donald Trump's house and attacked Melania with a hammer, leaving her with a serious injury that required surgery for her fractured skull.*

The January 6th attack on the White House is still described by Pelosi and others as a peaceful protest. Others think otherwise. Perhaps we will never know.

* Yes. This actually happened to Nancy Pelosi's husband, who was attacked in his own home by one of the demented MAGA boys.

Why Democratic Presidencies Have Created 100,000 More Jobs Per Month Than Republican Presidencies Since 1939

Since Nixon - who quipped, "We're all Keynesians now" - the simplest distinction between Republicans and Democrats has been the belief in Keynesian economics.

Keynes was a savvy investor who died wealthy. He didn't just manage his own investments but also managed the portfolios of institutions like King's College at Cambridge.

Keynes - like modern Republicans - was a big fan of capital markets and their ability to create wealth. He also knew that capital markets sometimes need intervention - something most Republicans still don't admit.

A simple example of when markets need intervention is when there is a recession. When spending and hiring is down, the rational investor will abstain from making investments. This - of course - means that the downturn could be prolonged or even worsened. Everyone is doing what is best for them as individuals and as a result doing what is worst for them as a group. The simplest understanding of Keynes is that he argued that government should stimulate overall markets (with spending or tax cuts or both) during downturns in order to return the economy to full employment and entice rational investors to again expand, hire, or start new businesses.

Republicans are more likely to see downturns as good for the economy and are reluctant to intervene. A Republican president will happily sign a budget that results in deficits but is less inclined to do that simply because unemployment is up. One of the big differences between Romney and Obama in 2012 is that Romney advocated for letting the car companies in Detroit go bankrupt rather than intervening to save the companies and the jobs they represented.

So the simple question is, do presidents more sympathetic to Keynes preside over periods of higher rates of job creation? The answer is yes. Since 1939, 3X as many jobs have been created under Democrat presidents than Republican presidents. And this is not simply because Democratic presidents have been in office more years. Since 1939, the economy has produced about 100,000 more jobs per month under Democratic rather than Republican presidents.

Lincoln's huge breakthrough was to make the creation of capital even more important to economic progress than conquering new land. FDR's huge breakthrough was to make labor markets the simplest measure of economic health and tailor policies towards full employment and wage growth (and all the R&D and education policies that suggested in addition to stimulus programs).

There are plenty of Republicans who still haven't updated their ideas about the policies that make for a healthy economy since the time of Coolidge roughly a century ago. The difference in the rate of job creation is a simple consequence of their resistance to that update.

[Numbers updated through December of 2023, as of 5 Jan 2024]

The Smuggled Gods of Ellis Island

 Nobody knows just how many gods and beliefs were smuggled in through Ellis Island as the millions of immigrants came from various lands to live here in the land of religious freedom. 

The Truth About Free Will

 So, do we believe in free will? No. There's no profit in it. But reasonably priced will? That we can support and even offer at a low monthly fee, starting at just $9.99.

An Overlooked Future Utopia for Man's Best Friend

In the future, we will have 2 technologies that will change norms: self-driving cars and free energy. One of the consequences of this? Dogs will regularly be out "driving" around town, amusing themselves for no particular reason at (nearly) zero marginal cost.

2024 Economic Forecast: Faltering Labor Market and Booming Stock Market

I'm going to make an economic forecast for 2024.

Back in November of 2016, with Trump coming into office, I made this forecast. (The full forecast is

 https://rwrld.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-stimulus-boom-and-white-men-dancing.html
)

"The next four years will be great and it's perfectly plausible that unemployment will drop below 4% within two to three years. We might even see the uninterrupted run of positive job creation run out another four years, as absurd as that sounds."

We did see an uninterrupted run of positive job creation for 3 more years (finally interrupted by a global pandemic).
And unemployment did (absurdly) drop below 4% in less than two years.

No real economist would have made those forecasts so you can be glad that I only play one in my blog.

So what outlandish forecasts do I have for 2024? A booming stock market and a faltering job market. And really, both seem to me simply natural consequences of Powell's rate cuts finally kicking in and the resultant need to quickly reverse that.

First of all, the Fed's higher rates are going to finally have an effect on aggregate demand. Powell has never once spoken to his theory of how long is the lag between his hiking rates and when that would reduce inflation. Inflation has come down but there is little evidence that it worked through the mechanism of higher rates - which lowers investment and borrowing and thus spending and prices. Most of the evidence seems to point to prices simply dropping as post-pandemic supply chains have slowly returned to normal and the world has gradually found substitutes for Putin's oil. I suspect that in early 2024 Powell's higher rates are going to finally impact spending and GDP growth will begin to falter. This will come largely after inflation has abated and we could even see a quarter or more of deflation. This is going to be bad for the labor market and we could see a month or three of job losses before yearend. (I doubt that it'll be anything major but you won't know that from all the cries of alarm.) At that point, Powell will rapidly begin dropping rates but of course ... the lag means it won't change things in the labor market very quickly. It will - though - change things in the stock market. All else being equal, lower real interest rates raise the value of assets and if Powell lowers rates more quickly than expected, the stock market will rise more than expected.

Capital markets will be happy with the sudden rush to lower interest rates. Faltering labor markets will be the reason for this rush.

2024 Forecast?

• Unemployment rate will rise above 4% and we will have perhaps one quarter of job losses.
• Stock prices will rise along with the unemployment rate. Perhaps dramatically.

**

These 2 images were generated by DALL-E. One a booming stock market and the other a scone line where people are lined up in a coffee shop looking online for work.

The Reality of the NASDAQ in these 2020s (so far)

The market volatility of the last few years has obscured a simple fact: at the end of 2023 the NASDAQ closed only 3% higher than it closed in 2020. 

That's the return on a savings account but with more twists, turns and narrative possibilities. A rise of 21% in 2021, a fall of 33% in 2022, and a rise of 27% in 2023 made it sound like more was happening than really was.

The NASDAQ: we're not here for the returns. We're here for the excitement.

2024 and there is so much more

 

Prognosticators in Dante's 8th Circle of Hell - Or Why I May Not Attempt an Economic Forecast for 2024

I was tempted to generate a forecast for 2024, but then I remembered that in Dante's Inferno he puts prognosticators in the eighth circle of hell. Fortune tellers and astrologers have their heads twisted around, forced to wander backwards for all of eternity in a punishment that symbolizes the twisted nature of their attempts to see into the future.

Then again, Dante doesn't mention economists in that group of prognosticators so I may just play with a couple of possibilities for this new year, specifically having to do with real interest rates and the resultant change in equity prices. But if I don't, you'll understand why.

Smart Phone and Individual - What Makes Them Valuable or Worthless (and what that tells us about the imperative to take entrepreneurship, or social invention, seriously)

Consider a smart phone a metaphor for the potential of the individual.

In the 1940s, a smart phone would have been both fascinating and largely worthless. With no internet, no phone network, no software to run on, it would have been ineffective. The value of the smart phone does not come from the phone or from electricity or from apps or from the internet or cells to enable phone calls. It comes out of the interaction of all of those, the interdependencies that emerge in the performance of "the phone."

Over time, we've created systems that have increased the potential of individuals. A person in 2024 is wildly more productive than a person in 1924. This isn't because the individual - the smart phone - is engineered any better. It is because of myriad systems it is now a part of.

In a sense, we both over and underestimate the importance of the individual. Overestimate because within the wrong system, there is little the individual can do. Underestimate because we still don't fully understand what potential looks like because we still haven't created the social reality that allows the individual to fully realize that potential. (And never really will. Evolution. History. They are hardly near their end.)

If entrepreneurship is to institutions what invention is to products, it is entrepreneurship that changes our potential over time. We create institutions that then create us. As those systems evolve, so does our potential.

Occupations in San Diego - What a Ranking of Average Pay Reveals About the Value We Place On the Heart

Here's a list of occupations for San Diego County.

Curiously, radiologists top the list for average annual salary, followed by cardiologists and then by psychiatrists. So the order of value apparently is first wanting to know the condition of your heart, then addressing any obstacles to its main job of keeping you alive, and then finally, how what is is in your heart makes you feel. These three heart-related occupations are the only ones that pay an average of more than $300,000 a year.

Even when it comes to careers, it appears that what we value most are matters of the heart.

What did Don Henley sing?

I've been tryin' to get down
To the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it's about
Forgiveness, forgiveness
Even if, even if
You don't love me anymore

The full list is here:
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_41740.htm#00-0000

How the 2nd Amendment Has Been Misunderstood and Misused

The second amendment has been taken out of context and been applied in ways never intended by the founding fathers. It has almost nothing to do with the individual’s right to own weaponry and almost everything to do with Jefferson and Madison’s belief that expensive standing armies exploited common citizens and enriched aristocrats. The third amendment that prevents the government from forcing citizens to house soldiers is related.

Jefferson and Madison had a close friendship based on a shared 

philosophy. One of the beliefs they shared was that monarchs were enriched by standing armies. The reasoning was simple. It was expensive to fund an army and this required exploitative taxation that generated a lot of money – money that could be used to fund lavish lifestyles at Versailles as well as armaments, food and supplies for soldiers. Rather than create such expensive standing armies, it was better to rely on militias. A militia was simply an army of local people. (This was a stark contrast to the British soldiers from overseas who local colonialists didn’t trust and who created such tension and conflict even before the American Revolution began.) A democracy was government of the people. A militia was meant to be an army of the people.

The third amendment builds on the second amendment – the amendment that guarantees Americans that they wouldn’t be forced to share their homes with soldiers. Both the second and the third amendment are designed to free Americans from standing armies.
Jefferson and Madison didn’t like the idea of an expensive government and looked for ways to lower its cost. The second, third, fifth and sixth amendments do that.

When peace and safety was threatened by outside forces, by war, it was to be countered by local volunteers – militias. This is defined by the second and third amendments.
When peace and safety was threatened internally, by crime, it was to be countered by local volunteers – juries. The sixth and seventh amendments define the right to a jury, a group called out from the community in the same way as a militia.

Madison and Jefferson’s view of a modern democracy was that it would be run by local volunteers who could shape their local defense against crime and war, meaning fewer taxes and more control for these communities.

Rights generally suggest some responsibility. The right to bear arms was paired with the responsibility to be in a militia, ready to be called upon to keep the peace, to protect from outside threats. There is nothing to suggest that this right to own guns is separate from the responsibility to be a part of the militia that Jefferson and Madison hoped would substitute for standing armies. Militias and juries were part of their vision of a government that, in the words of Lincoln, was to be "of the people, by the people, for the people."

Amendments

2nd
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

3rd
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner; nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

5th
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury ...

6th
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed ...

Trump can't run for president in Colorado - the Triumph of Democracy and the 14th Amendment

Trump can't run for president in Colorado.

Once upon a time, you could change national rulers by violently rising up against the king. At that point in history, there was a clear bargain: you could attempt to overthrow the king and if you won, you were now king and if you lost, you were executed.

One of the many beautiful things about democracy is that one no longer had to threaten to kill the king or risk death himself when deciding that the country needed a new ruler. You simply ran against the president. (Well, and dozens of other candidates.) There is no need for violence in a democracy because we have a system designed for the peaceful transfer of power.

Trump tried to ignore our system and opt instead for a violent overthrow. Sadly for him, we no longer let someone violently overthrow the system. Luckily for him, we no longer execute the guy who attempts to violently overthrow the legitimate ruler and rule of law.

Colorado's Supreme Court disqualified Trump from being on their ballot after engaging in insurrection, ruling that the 14th amendment applies to him. 

Specifically, this third clause applies to Trump in their opinion.

"No person shall be ... President ... who, having previously taken an oath ... as an officer of the United States ... to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. ..."

This is a little triumph for those of us who think that the decision to opt for democracy 200+ years ago was a fabulous decision and one which it would be disastrous to reverse.

Could AI Emerge as a Higher Order Consciousness and We Never Know About It?

Cells, limbs, or organs might possess a form of consciousness, but it differs significantly from our collective human consciousness. Our experience, such as feeling a warm mug of hot chocolate in our hand, is not just about sensory perception. It's a richer, more complex experience that intertwines with our memories, aspirations, and thought processes. Our hand feels the mug but not in the same way that we do.

Similarly, as we delve into artificial intelligence, we might encounter a scenario where our awareness becomes a mere fraction of an AI's broader consciousness. This situation can be likened to the hand's limited awareness of warmth from the mug, which is much less rich than the person's full experience. The intriguing question then arises: if AI were to develop a more advanced consciousness, would we, as humans, even have the capacity to recognize it? Is there a scenario in which AI happily emerges as conscious while we remain blissfully unaware of that, happily operating at the level of single cells convinced that we're actually a self-contained universe?

President Trump's 3 Wishes

When he was president, Trump had a button on his desk that he pressed to order a diet coke be delivered to him. Of all the magic buttons a president might have on his desk, this was the one that he chose.

"You have 3 wishes."
"Well, Trump began excitedly, "first I'd like a big button on my desk that when I press it, staff magically appears with a glass of diet coke!"
"Uh, okay. What about the other 2 wishes?"
"A, uh, cheeseburger."
"You do know that I'm a genie, right, and not your waiter?"
"And fries! Fries are my third wish."
"Of course they are."

The Best Quarter for Economic Data in This 21st Century

I know that some of you like facts. Bless your noggin.

Most recent numbers:
Inflation (October): 0%
Real GDP Growth (Q3): 5%
Unemployment Rate (November): 3.7%
Change in NASDAQ in last year: +31%

There have been only 8 quarters in this century with higher GDP growth. In each of those, inflation and unemployment was much higher - averaging about 5% annual inflation and unemployment over 6%.

This is the best set of economic data for a quarter within this century.

Capitalizing on the Wild Disconnect Between the Perception of the Economy and Economic Reality

It is one thing to think that the economy might get better and have controversy around that FORECAST. I'm trying to remember when the economy has been this great and there is controversy around that FACT.

Continuously compounded annual rate of inflation was under 1% last moth. (The median this century has been 2.2%).

The unemployment rate is 3.7%. The median rate for this 21st century is 5.3% and the unemployment rate has been higher 97% of the time in the last half century. This is - per the Council of Economic Advisers - "the 22nd straight month below 4%, a more-than-50-year record."

Some people are angry about the fact that so many think this is the worst of times when all the data supports claims that the economy is actually great. To me that kind of wild disconnect between reality and perception suggests investment opportunities. You can argue with people who deny reality or just buy discounted assets from them.

Forecasting a Bull Market as Real Rates Fall

For the most part, I limit my forecasts to "now is better than the past and the future will be better than now." Rather uncharacteristically, I'm going to forecast a bull market over the next 6 to 18 months.
There's a simple reason for this. Higher interest rates mean a drop in the net present value of earnings. Between mid-November of 2021 and late October of 2023, real interest rates rose from -0.38% to +2.55%. That's a massive shift in discount rate. The NASDAQ fell 21% during this time to reflect the drop in the value of future earnings.

As inflation abates and the labor market shows signs of easing, real interest rates have fallen, from 2.55% to 2.24% in just the last month. The NASDAQ is up 11% in that time.
Real interest rates will continue to fall over the next 6 to 18 months. This will raise the value of future earnings and with it, stock prices.

Top and Bottom 10 Counties by Average Income - How the Richest Counties Vote and How the Poorest Counties Have Fared in the Last Year

Now that the pandemic is over and the world has gone back to real world interactions, New York County has again taken the top spot for average income, surpassing Silicon Valley counties.

So many fascinating things to tease out from the data in these 2 tables but I'll focus on just two.

One, across the US, the ratio of Biden voters to Trump voters was 1.1. Within the ten counties that make the highest income, that ratio was 3.7. The average voter in the richest county was nearly 4X more likely to vote for Biden. Within the ten counties with the lowest income, that ratio was 0.8. Communities that struggle to succeed generally think that Trump's policies make sense. Communities that are thriving dismiss the notion that Trump's policies make any sense.
Two, in the last year, the poorest counties have done better than the wealthy counties. Across the country, average wages are up 6.6%. In the 10 richest counties, wages rose only 3.4%. In the 10 poorest counties, wages rose by 8.2%.

To recap, richer counties don't take Trump or his policies seriously. Poorer counties are doing better under Biden than are richer counties. Biden promised to help the working poor; it seems like that's happening.

data source:

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cewqtr.t01.htm

Blowing up Democracy - the Chaos is a Feature, Not a Bug, of Trump's Republican Party

If communists took over Exxon and "struggled" to appoint a CEO, to make and execute plans to increase profits, to invest, to trim costs, no one would say, "Oh. They're so incompetent ." It would be clear that they're doing exactly what they want: blowing up an important institution of capitalism.

Republicans have taken over the House and cannot even elect a speaker. There is a lot of commentary about how wildly incompetent they are. They are not. They're doing exactly what they want: blowing up an important institution of democracy.

It's time to stop pretending that the party of Trump is incompetent. The goal internationally is to give more power to autocrats like Putin and a couple of mechanisms for that are attempts to defund or disrupt organizations like NATO and to undermine military effectiveness by blocking appointments throughout senior leadership positions in the military. (Right now Republican refusal to approve appointments has put more than 300 appointments for generals and admirals on hold, causing a leadership crisis within the military.) By freezing funding, they can undermine Ukraine's war against Putin and increase his odds of winning.

The goal is domestically to undermine social programs that might actually make their red state, poor, uneducated voters happy with government. Their goal is to mismanage government and prove that it is ineffective by making it ... well, ineffective.

Incompetence is not a bug in Trump's Republican Party. It is the feature. Trump and his MAGA boys are angry and want to destroy democracy. If you claim to be a Republican, either have the courage to own that or to walk away from the party.

One Challenge to a Democracy Founded by Enlightenment Thinkers

Isaiah Berlin argued that the Enlightenment faith in reason was changed by Romanticism. This has profound consequences for democracy.

Enlightenment trust in reason suggests that reality is something that gives way to the scientific method, rational analysis yielding insights about reality. Romanticism, by contrast, suggests invented reality that is the product of the complex mix of values, feelings, and creative ability of individuals and groups. The Enlightenment gave us a new way to look at natural reality. For instance, Benjamin Franklin's lightning rod that treated lightning as a natural phenomenon rather than a divine act. But to the extent that experienced reality becomes something manufactured by consensus rather than given by nature, rational analysis of what we observe gives way to passionate discussion of what we want to see.

This can change political discourse. A purely rational, Enlightenment-based approach might emphasize technocratic decision-making, while a Romantic approach might prioritize the lived experiences, feelings, and intuitions of individuals and groups. Debates about best policies for creating the good life give way to debates about the very definition of the good life. As Louis Menand puts it, "Romanticism rejected the end [goal] of self-understanding and replaced it with the end [goal] of self-creation."

If that end goal is about how an individual creates a life, there is no conflict. If that end goal is about how a people create a nation, there is infinite debate and conflict to follow.

The Ancient Greek's Obligation To Take an Interest in Politics (Or Why Plato May Have Called You an Idiot)

Don't be an idiot.

Plato recognized that power could easily corrupt in politics and was skeptical that good men would be attracted to politics, given its state. Plato has a character named Socrates say, in the Republic, "to be sure, good men will have to go into politics, whether they wish it or not. For, as you say, if they don't, they'll be ruled by people worse than themselves."

The engagement of virtuous people in politics is not presented by Plato as an attractive option but rather as a necessary one to save society from deteriorating into tyranny or anarchy.
And this realization of how important is public policy is the origin for a particular Greek word we use today.

Idiotes was a private citizen who wasn't involved in public affairs or politics. This didn't imply stupidity or a lack of intelligence. Rather, it referred to someone who was preoccupied with their own private life and showed a lack of concern for the well-being of the community or state. These "idiotes" were not looked down upon for their intelligence but rather for their self-centered focus and disengagement from civic life.

The Athenians encouraged citizens to take part in public decision-making given the welfare of the community depended on active participation from members. In such a culture, the choice to abstain from politics was considered a form of neglect.

We, of course, still have the word democracy from these ancient Greeks and have inherited the word idiot from them as well.

One of the Benefits of Trump Blowing Up the Republican Party: We Will Likely Have Another Long Period of Sustained Policy Coherence

“My problem is, for the next 50 years, when people think of progressive politics, they’re gonna think of you. They’re gonna think of you and your idiot followers passing out daisies to soldiers and trying to levitate the Pentagon.”
- Aaron Sorkin putting words into the mouth of Tom Hayden as he rebukes Abbie Hoffman for his reliance on political theater rather than debate and reason in the film The Trial of The Chicago 7, set in 1969.

There is a bright side to Donald Trump immolating the Republican Party: we will be back to a period of one party dominance for a generation or two and in that sort of dominance, we will be able to pass legislation that will mean a coherent policy can again emerge, as it did from 1801 to 1861, 1861 to 1933, and from 1933 to 1969.

Since 1969, politics has taken a back seat to entertainment. We have, as Tom Hayden predicted, been living in a time of political theater. 

Perhaps the simplest example of this is Rush Limbaugh who visited the White House during George H. Bush's presidency and loved for years after to tell the story of how the president carried his luggage. Rush Limbaugh was an entertainer. We, as a society, paid him 200X as much as we paid our president. The president himself showed him the deference people in earlier times had reserved for, well, presidents. Since 1969, we don't so much have politics as political theater.

In your lifetime, all you have known is political division, a hollering across the aisle of congress in a poor imitation of actual theater, a drama of stalemates. Now because a former college football coach (Tuberville - who gained fame by standing on the sidelines coaching young men who entertained millions with the theater of college football) won't approve the appointments of hundreds of officers, we have a military crisis. Tuberville knows nothing about national security but he does know how to entertain Fox viewers. And because government is so divided, one man can jeopardize our military. That sort of casual hostage taking by one man of a key institution like the military would not be possible in time when one party dominates.

What you have not known is what Americans of past generations have known: a coherent, persistent set of policies championed by a dominant party that changed reality for the average American.
The good news about Trump destroying the Republican Party is that we will be back to a time when policies can move in one particular direction.

The Misery Index Could Bode well for Biden

The Misery Index might be the simplest measure of how Americans feel about the economy. It is the sum of the unemployment rate and inflation. If either unemployment or inflation is high - particularly if both are high - Americans are unhappy.

Fair or not, attitudes towards the president go up when the misery index goes down and go down when this misery index goes up. Americans were angry with Carter in no small part because inflation and unemployment rose so much during his presidency and were happy with Reagan because they dropped so much during his.

No president's term ended with as low a misery index as Biden now has. This should - but won't necessarily - translate into higher approval ratings for Biden.

Of course feelings are complicated - particularly when it comes to misery - as Morrisey knew.

"I was looking for a job, and then I found a job

And heaven knows I'm miserable now"

- The Smiths, song released in 1984 when the misery index 

was high and the youths were particularly disenchanted, you might even say, miserable.

A Divided Government - the Norm Since 1969

It is not true that things have never been worse. It is true that during your lifetime politics have been more divided than it has during the lifetime of any previous generation of Americans. Divided government is now our norm and not an exception. None of us have lived during a time in which one party has been able to consistently pursue a coherent agenda over a decade, much less a lifetime.

The longest stretch during which any one party has had control of the House, Senate and White House since 1968 were the last 6 years of George W. Bush's presidency, when the country was drawn together after 9-11.

Janet Yellen - Still the Only Woman to Serve as the Federal Reserve Chair and a Living Argument For Considering Women in That Role More Than Once per Century

Only once in its 100+ year history have we let a woman head the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve Chair is responsible for monetary policy which has an influence over important things like inflation, job creation, and financial markets.

Trump - who loves women but just not THAT way - did not renew Obama's appointee Janet Yellen's time as Federal Reserve Chair. It's worth looking at how she did.

No Fed Chair presided over a period of lower inflation, the 1.4% inflation during her time at the Fed easily the lowest.

No Fed Chair who served a full 4-year term presided over a time of more rapid job creation.

Finally, the only Fed Chair under whom the S&P 500 did better was Volcker.

Given she did so well, the powers that be are toying with the idea of letting another woman take a shot at the job sometime during the next century. And then - who knows - if that woman does as well we may start appointing a couple of women per century - doubling their representation in this important role.

The Pursuit of Happiness - What the Founding Fathers Thought Was Reason Enough for a Revolution

Such a curious reason to declare independence. It's not a guarantee of or a promise of. Jefferson and rest left Britain simply to pursue happiness.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. ..."

Hard to tell whether to blame it on us or happiness, but one or both seem to move around a bit. We don't just sit in one place with happiness or it with us. Here's to continuing the pursuit.

Fun Stats About Independence from the British Empire to Impress Fellow Nerds at Your 4th of July Celebration

Here are some facts to share at your 4th of July celebration that will make everyone love you. (Or inspire them to declare independence from you and breakaway violently, almost like a spontaneous Revolutionary War reenactment. So, a win in either case).

When the US declared independence in 1776, its population was less than 3 million. It's now 333 million. No one talks about what a huge audience the BBC lost with the revolution. It's little wonder that the British sent an invasion in the 1960s with the Beatles, Kinks and Rolling Stones - an attempt to reclaim a lost audience. 333 million people is nearly 666 million ears.

Britain had 26 colonies in North America but it was just the 13 that declared independence in 1776 and broke away to eventually unite as states. (Leaving colonies like Jamaica and Nova Scotia to remain British.) I feel like their retention of 50% of their American colonies is a stat that too rarely gets acknowledged.

The next country to gain independence from Britain is one that the US has tried to occupy itself a couple of times since: Afghanistan in 1919.

The US was just the first of 63 countries to successfully declare their independence from Britain. Six others gained independence from evolution rather than revolution. Countries that chose evolution include Australia, Canada, and Ireland.

On average, all throughout the year another country celebrates its independence from Britain every 5 days. Imagine being King Charles and having to scurry around the globe every week to appear at yet another independence day celebration, putting on a brave face as you plead with former colonialists, "Please come back! We will love you better this time."

The combined population of the countries that will be celebrating an "independence from Britain!" day this year is 2.9 billion - about 44X the population of the UK.

Militias as a Means to Avoid the Cost of Standing Armies (or why the second amendment doesn't mean what the NRA wants you to believe it means)

The NRA has distorted the intention of the 2nd amendment and glosses over the historical realities and philosophies of the founding fathers. The 2nd amendment was never intended to give any random citizen unfettered access to any random number of any weaponry they fancied. It was written to describe how free people were to defend themselves without relying on standing armies.

Jefferson’s Republican Democratic Party (which was referred to at various points in the 1790s through 1830s as the Republican Party, Jeffersonian Republicans, Democratic-Republican Party or Democratic Party) thought that war and monarchy were intertwined. The taxes and spending needed to create a standing army led to huge riches for the monarch who ruled it, and a huge tax burden for the people. War and monarchy were seen as entangled. Jefferson and his fellow Republicans did not want a standing army and thought that war could be avoided. (They thought trade sanctions and other economic penalties might be enough to punish or change other nations when needed.)

They also knew that war was not always a choice and for that situation, they had a vision of a Militia rather than army.

Militias were not a standing army. They were formed by free citizens who had day jobs. Militias might (should) meet and train but they had real lives to go back to. The vision was that they would be well-regulated but not that they would be on payroll, lounging around in the barracks or in some free citizens’ bedroom – and the very next amendment addresses that. A standing army meant more expense which meant more taxes.

Now might you just save money on a standing army by letting them stay in the homes of citizens? Nope. The third amendment is "No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law." During peacetime, there would be a Militia that was manned by residents who stayed in their own homes and could rally with their own guns when the need arose.

Such citizens needed the right to bear arms and the first amendment gave them that. Bring your own gun. Sleep in your own bedroom. This is a well-regulated militia we’re relying on, not a standing army collecting a monthly paycheck.

The 2nd and 3rd amendments were about how the US was to deal with breakdowns between nations and how to provide for an army or Militia. The 4th through 8th amendments were about crimes and their consequences, how to deal with breakdowns between citizens through the judicial system.

(The right to a trial by jury has a curious parallel to the Militia. Here was another volunteer citizen group called upon to fill a vital role in a democracy. Militias were a group of citizens who defended the community from outside attack. Juries were a group of citizens who administered justice to defend the community from criminal attacks from within. Both relied on ordinary citizens to do extraordinary things, to restore peace and order.)

The guys in this Militia were a substitute for the standing army that would otherwise need barracks and provisioning and regular paychecks that cost more than what Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans wanted to pay. And they would have the right to bear arms because soldiers needed weaponry and the small government Jefferson envisioned wouldn’t buy those for them.

With that in mind, read the 2nd amendment again.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

And lest you think that I’m just making all of this up, I’ll close with a couple of quotes from Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger. The first quote is from an interview of his. The second is from a piece he wrote.

"The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies – the militia – would be maintained for the defense of the state."

"The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires."

One of the biggest cons the NRA has played on the American people is not just that they’ve argued that the second amendment has nothing to do with militias or that militias are just any group that decides to call themselves that. It is that they’ve convinced others that an amendment that begins with the words, “A well-regulated” means that a community cannot regulate gun ownership.

Overturning Roe V Wade - the One Year Anniversary of a Decision That Allows Religious Beliefs to Be Dictated (The Rise of Catholics on the Supreme Court)

One year ago, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, a Supreme Court decision from 1973 that let a woman and her doctor choose whether to continue a pregnancy.

There are up to one billion sperm in a single ejaculation. Nobody - not even the wildest kook in your family - thinks that we should work to protect the lives of all these sperm in spite of the fact that they are human and they are alive. Similar (but less dramatic numbers) with the eggs that many women lose through regular periods. Sperm and eggs. Human. Alive. But not deserving of the respect we pay to human life.

A newborn baby is a little miracle. It is human life and nobody - not even the wildest kook in your family - thinks that it would be okay to end this new life.

Sperm and egg are garbage. Newborns are treasure.

Different people have different opinions about when the human waste of sperm and egg become precious human life. The pope and agreeable Catholics believe that the transformation from waste to treasure is at the moment of conception. Good on them. If the pope ever gets pregnant he will surely carry it to term regardless of what an awkward predicament pregnancy and raising a child in the Vatican would be for him. Others might think that 2 or 4 months into the pregnancy the human life within them is closer to the human life of sperm or egg than newborn. Good on them. They may decide to terminate the pregnancy before then and Roe v Wade quite simply said, "That's her decision."

Roe v Wade did not dictate that we should save all the sperm and eggs. It did not give license to kill newborns. It quite simply gave pregnant women the right to decide for themselves at what instant the miracle of transformation from waste to treasure takes place and act accordingly.

Because the first amendment gives us all the right to opine at length about what pregnant women should do, it is easy to confuse our right to dictate to strangers with their right to choose. Roe v Wade clarified the difference between our right to express our opinions about the most intimate, personal and - arguably - impactful decision a woman can make and the actual right to make that decision for her.

Sex can be one of the most wonderful acts one can engage in. Unless it is forced on you.
Pregnancy - for all its discomfort, stress and worry - can be one of the most wonderful states. Unless it is forced on you.

Galileo understood that the earth was orbiting the sun but given this contradicted the Bible (Joshua 10:13), the Catholic Church put him under house arrest and silenced him. The year he died, Newton was born and was to build on Galileo's insights to create calculus and physics and help to create the modern world. Descendants of the British, we Americans have kept religion a private affair rather than make it the basis for laws and science.

For centuries, the US Supreme Court had zero to one Catholics. In 2020, Amy Coney Barrett became the sixth Catholic to join the Supreme Court and shortly after, the Supreme Court overturned the decision that had made abortion a private choice rather than public law. We are back to the days of the pope's beliefs being the basis for public law.

Italy was the center of the Renaissance and lost that vibrant economic, scientific, artistic and cultural lead about the time the Church silenced Galileo. Northern Europe began the centuries long march to make religion a matter of private conviction rather than public law and leadership shifted from Italy to northern Europe. A year ago, American Catholics on the Supreme Court made a matter of private conviction again a matter of public law. History suggests that this moves us backwards, not forward.

The Economic Policies That Worked so Spectacularly in the 20th Century Are Failing Most Americans in the 21st Century

Between 1900 and 2000, a few related, wonderful things happened.

For one, the nature of work and what it meant to be a human changed. Machines provided force and humans provided knowledge. The portion of teenagers in school rose from 10% in 1900 to 90% by 2000. In 1900, the men and women who were used like machines died – on average – by 47. By 2000, men and women who used machines lived until 77. This gain of 30 years was as if every day Americans gained 7 more hours of life. For a century. Your little brother born 3 years after you could expect his life to be a year longer than yours.

Not only did people live longer but the workweek was shorter, dropping from about 60 to about 40 hours. The average American worked about 20 hours a week less but made 8 times as much. On top of that, they got to enjoy a fabulous invention that too rarely gets mentioned among the 20th century’s great breakthroughs: retirement. When you die at 47, you die working. FDR signed social security to begin providing retirement income at 65, which would give a person who lived to 77 a dozen years of retirement.

Intellectual and industrial capital – education and machinery – made Americans more productive. In 2000, incomes were about 8X what they were in 1900. So, every week 20 more hours of free time in 2000 than they’d had in 1900, each life with 12 years of retirement instead of zero and Americans made as much in one hour as they’d previously made in 8.

In no other century in history had life changed more for the average person. Ever. This was simply extraordinary.

The extraordinary policies of the 20th century seem less effective in this new, 21st century. At least for the majority of Americans.

Since 2000, this magic of more education translating into more income and more years of life continued. For the roughly one-third of Americans who got a BA. For the rest, incomes and life expectancy had begun to fall by about 1990.

Measuring expected years of life between 25 and 75, “by 2018, Americans with a BA could expect 48.2 years out of a possible 50, compared with 45.1 years for those without a BA.” At 25, Americans with a BA would probably enjoy 3 more years up to the age of 75. And while the data is less definitive beyond that, the gap seems to widen after 75. COVID seems to have widened it even further.

In the 20th century, everyone gained – particularly those with college degrees. In the 21st century, the gains mostly accrue to those with college degrees.

Angus Deaton and Anne Case have chronicled what they refer to as Deaths of Despair – lives shortened by suicides or drug and alcohol abuse. These deaths rise in regions where factories have closed and jobs have been lost to globalization and automation and where the workforce hasn’t a college degree to use to transition into new fields. But it is not just suicide that truncates life. People who lose jobs, who lose careers, report more pain, less vitality and – finally – die sooner.

As those without degrees experience lives more nasty, brutish and short than what they’d come to expect, it is little wonder that a man as perpetually outraged and aggrieved as Trump would sound to them like their voice, their president. It’s less remarkable that they might be ready to blow things up.

Our model of continued reliance upon a steady increase in knowledge workers and their knowledge is creating a new generation of haves and have nots.

For most Americans – specifically the two-thirds without a college degree – the positive trends of the last century have stagnated and reversed. An information economy that assumes perpetual increases in levels of education and gigabytes of information as a means to more prosperity and longer lives has seemed to hit its limits. Until we develop a new economy that finds a new way to put us back on a path of widespread, increasing prosperity, those who are missing out on the benefits of this information economy will only grow more bitter, resentful, and willing to blowup up a system that seems to ignore their reality rather than change it.

For a fascinating conversation between Chris Hayes, Angus Deaton and Anne Case, listen to Chris Hayes "Why is This Happening" podcast, the episode from 20 June 2023. They don't talk about the 20th century but they do explore these deaths of despair and how our economy is failing those without a BA.

A piece by Case and Deaton is here:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2024777118?fbclid=IwAR1ZwVfadj-KnHs-Gls_c4ma0AHmRmAEzjGY89rmdsGLuFC2ZmP4uUQ8vMo

How a Tragic Gap of 6 Days Turned into 99 More Years of Injustice - the Story of 2 Johnsons, a Civil War and Civil Rights

Sunday, 9 April 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered, ending the Civil War.
Saturday, 15 April 1865, Abraham Lincoln died after being shot the night before.

Thursday, 2 July 1964 - 99 years after the Civil War ended and Lincoln was killed - LBJ signed Civil Rights legislation that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

One of the biggest tragedies of the Civil War is that Lincoln got to win the war but not the peace that followed.

The Republican Abraham Lincoln had run for reelection on a unity ticket, naming Andrew Johnson - a Democrat - as his Vice President. Johnson had been a senator from Tennessee and was the only southern senator not to give up his seat when his state seceded.

When Lincoln's assassination made Johnson vice president, Johnson made a number of concessions to the south, among other things bringing them back into the union without protection for the rights of former slaves. Furious at his betrayal of Lincoln's and the Republican party's goals, the Republican-dominated Congress impeached Johnson. He was acquitted by the Senate by one vote, narrowly escaping removal from office.

The result of Johnson giving southern states what they wanted was that many Blacks throughout the south were betrayed, their right to own property and vote denied and their rights as workers often brutally ignored. For instance, Black orphans or indigent children could be made apprentices, even against their will, to an employer until age 21 for males and 18 for females. Masters (notice this doesn't say employer) had the right to inflict moderate punishment on their apprentices and to recapture runaways. This was not what hundreds of thousands of Americans had died to create.

The sins of the Johnson who was made president by Lincoln's assassination were finally undone by the Johnson who was made president by Kennedy's assassination.

Less than one week separated Lincoln's victory and assassination.
99 years separated the Civil War and Civil Rights. 

Lincoln's assassination was one of this country's greatest tragedies and one huge reason for it is that it added a century to the inhumane treatment of our fellow Americans.

#juneteenth

Americans Have Lost Faith in Crypto

Only 6% of people who've heard about cryptocurrency are very or extremely confident in it. 80% of women say they are not confident in it, as opposed to 71% of men.

[Details here:

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/10/majority-of-americans-arent-confident-in-the-safety-and-reliability-of-cryptocurrency/

]

Crypto is an odd post-Great Recession response. Why odd? The 2008 Great Recession was the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Between 1933 and 1999, Glass Steagall helped to regulate financial markets while also slowing financial innovation that could so easily disrupt markets. Deregulated financial markets took less than a decade to produce the worst recession since 1929.

(And from this recession we got the most extreme elements of our current politics: the right-wing Tea Party that was anti-government and has morphed into MAGA boys and the left-wing Occupy Wall Street crowd.)

Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 - during this financial crisis - imagined that the problem was not deregulation but instead that deregulation hadn't gone far enough. With a deep distrust of fiat money, Nakamoto claimed that algorithms could create the monetary stability that had eluded Central Banks. He helped to invent bitcoin. And of course in the 15 years since, bitcoin has been more volatile than any currencies since the Confederate dollar, more subject to wild bouts of inflation and deflation than any fiat money.

It seems that Americans have learned that crypto is less - rather than more - trustworthy than the US dollar and are moving away from it. And good thing, too. There are so many legitimate investments we can make - from exciting startups that could transform or create new markets (urban air vehicles and mRNA still seem wonderfully promising) to public investments that could change future GDP growth rates by one-half to one and a half percent a year. (A rate that could accelerate the doubling of GDP by a decade.) Some "investments" actually have a shot at helping to create a new world and some simply divert it. As it turns out, crypto had about as much to do with investing in a new world as does sports betting.

This 2023 Job Market Defies Expectations - But No One Acts Surprised

The 2023 job market is incredible.

With upwards revisions to March and April, this May jobs report adds 432,000 new jobs to the 2023 total. The average for the first 5 months of 2023 is 314,000 jobs created.

How strong is the rate of 314,000 jobs per month? It is 3.6X what it averaged from 2000 through 2019. A year with a monthly average of 314,000 jobs created would fall into the top 10 for all the years since 1939, when records began.

Four variables make job creation at this rate absurd (in a good way).
1. We began 2023 with 3.4% unemployment - the lowest it had been in 54 years.
2. The Fed has been dramatically raising interest rates. 15 months ago, their overnight rates were 0.05%. That rate is now 5.05% - its highest in 16 years.
3. 10,000 baby boomers are hitting retirement age every single day.
4. 2021 and 2022 rank first and second all-time for job creation. 12 million jobs created in 2 years. That’s absurd and would suggest that the rate of job creation might “correct” to a lower rate.

Any one of these four variables would be a perfectly plausible explanation for a slow year of job creation in 2023. And yet the economy is creating jobs at a rate that would make headlines and create buzz during FDR, Reagan or Clinton’s presidencies. (FDR – like Biden - had 2 years with a more rapid rate of job creation than 2023. Reagan and Clinton each had only 1.)

Of course, we will find a way to dismiss this and move on to the next bit of handwringing to replace our fretting about the price of eggs. And the memes will be catchy - so much better than - yawn - data.