PCE inflation spiked upward in January:
On a conventional year-over-year basis, PCE inflation was up 2.4% in January and core PCE was up 2.8%.
This spike is all about services. Goods inflation was negative, at -2.0%, while services inflation came in at 7.4%.
Kevin, your silence on the Supreme Court delay in Trump's immunity appeal is deafening. With the Jan 6 trial now very unlikely before the election (Judge Luttig), it looks to me that at least 5 SCOTUS members did Trump a solid.
It only takes four to grant cert. Five for a stay. Six to summarily affirm.
Since the trial IS stayed, they must have gotten five.
Of course SCOTUS is trying to give TFG the White House. Absolutely.
Don't know why Kevin is silent on it - if TFG is back in the White House, yesterday was the day it happened.
I remember that in a previous post by Kevin, he predicted either an 8-1 or 7-2 SCOTUS vote denying immunity. I think that was optimistic. But even so, they did have five or six to grant Trump the gift of fatal delay.
I'm skeptical of the poll respondents who say they would vote for tfg today, but wouldn't if he were to be convicted. If he loses a case, he and the chickenshit GOP 'leaders' will howl about bias/the deep state/the Biden crime family/persecution!/etc., and the cult will buy it all. So I don't see the legal proceedings as likely to change the election results.
Don't buy the hype.
Aileen Cannon has had scheduling in her pocket to get in the way of Tanya Chutkan's. With an indefinite stay of the J6 trial, Cannon no longer has that ability.
If SCOTUS always felt it would eventually step in and put its stamp on this highly consequential issue, now would be the time.
First, had it stepped in at Jack Smith's earlier request, it might reflect bias towards Smith. However, stepping in at Trump's own request prevents such an interpretation. Indeed, Trump thanked SCOTUS for stepping in. Hard to sell his MAGA supporters of SCOTUS bias after he thanked them for taking it up at his request, eh?
Second, had SCOTUS instead allowed the issue to go through en banc review in the DC Circuit, it would have taken longer for the issue to reach SCOTUS and allow it to have the final say.
The only way you can interpret this as a delay is if you think SCOTUS wouldn't want to leave its own record on the matter, and therefore allow the DC Circuit's Appeals Court's decision to be the final word.
Sure, George Conway sold the nation on the notion that the DC Circuit's decision was good enough for SCOTUS to let it stand as the final word. But, judges (lawyers broadly) have big egos and they only get bigger the higher up they are. No one should be surprised that SCOTUS wanted to be the final word on this.
First, had it stepped in at Jack Smith's earlier request, it might reflect bias towards Smith.
It might have reflected a realization of the seriousness of the Jan 6 trial, and a concern for the good of the country as opposed to partisan posturing. I know, that was always too much to ask.
As mentioned by other observers, when the Supreme Court wants to move, it can do so very quickly. They took up Bush v Gore one day after they received the case, and "settled" it very soon after.
Bottom line: the trial will not be concluded before the election. The famous jurist Judge Luttig (a conservative highly critical of the Jan 6 coup attempt) has said so. If that is "hype", I no longer know the definition of that word.
I think you'll see almost every SCOTUS member who voted to take up Bush v Gore come to regret it. But, that had a deadline -- the Electoral College -- so it really had to speed up if they wanted to review.
Nonetheless, putting Chutkan back into mid to late July means Cannon has almost no excuse to delay, and it gives Jack Smith the ability to really test Cannon's bias, maybe even a mandamus?
Why is it deafening? It's been less than 24 hours.
Your point is well taken, however, I think it only required 4 SCOTUS members.
that's scary enough...
One would hope that they took the case to come down on Trump's position 9-0, that is presidents do not have absolute immunity, they are not monarchs. Instead it will probably be 5-4 either way.
As to the topic of the post, we've clearly run out of workers, and the pre-Pubescents want to kick out anyone with brown skin who's already here. I kind of hope that Trump wins so that the assholes can experience the REAL sort of inflation that other authoritarian countries deal with all the time.
Not really, of course, because "the good guys" (and gals) would suffer, too, but maybe in an alternative universe which can be shown on our TV's?
Anandakos-
"we've clearly run out of workers"
Yes and no
It used to be that many economists thought that "full" employment was 2 - 3% unemployment. The theory being that there were THAT many people transitioning into retirement or were disabled and could not work. With the majority of the boomers now transitioning OUT of the work force, 2 - 3% unemployment is now low unemployment but not FULL employment. When the boomers are gone is when we will get a clearer picture of the employment landscape.
This is like a slow motion train wreck.
When the number of boomer deaths exceed the number of workers entering the work force we will be coming out of the boomer induced fog we have been in. We are almost there.
But addressing the boomer induced labor "surge" puts the Reagan, Obama and Clinton jobs created numbers in a much brighter light. Just when we needed jobs our economy expanded to absorb these new workers. We now need to shrink the economy as the boomers die off. (Slowly)
The number of immigrants (legal) needed to fill SOME of the current open jobs positions needs to increase.
Amusing "trend line"
Less amusing, the total silence of Drum on how poorly founded his banging on US Fed has proven to be, and on the confirmation of the resilience and feed-throug rebound issues for inflation that Fed (and other cool minded inflation risk watchers) have watched [this different than the permanent hyper-inflation predictor people].
In end however data rather indicate that Fed and Biden administration (if somewhat late in the later side in admitting the problem) have gotten a response right as the trend rather should be - excl. a large shock that of course can always occur [as like worsening Red Sea situ] - getting the economy properly cooled on inflation in very nice timing for the election. Sentiment turning around as seen in recent surveys.