Last month, when Kamala Harris still had some chance of winning the election, we were not surprised to learn that according to the extremely political Bureau of Labor Statistics, in August the number of job openings unexpectedly soared from an upward revised 7.7 million to 8.040 million, which was not only a 3-sigma beat to expectations, but was also above the highest Wall Street forecast. Fast forward to today, when Kamala's chance of winning are effectively zero - as even the suddenly apolitical Jeff Bezos now admits - and shockingly moments ago the BLS reported that in September, the number of job openings plunged from over 8 million to just 7.4 million, the lowest since early 2021...
... a staggering 6 sigma miss to expectations, and a number which came below the lowest estimate; in fact as shown below, in just one month we have gone from a staggering beat to one of the biggest misses on record!
For starters, CPI excludes several significant costs faced by households today - ranging from property taxes to soaring interest payments.
While price levels remain notably higher than before the pandemic, according to the CPI, inflation has slowed - reaching a 2.4% increase for the year ending in September. That's only part of the picture, Bloomberg reports.
"The CPI is capturing the goods and services that you purchased for consumption, but there are things that affect your cost of living that are outside of that," explains Steve Reed, a BLS economist.For instance, interest charges on rising consumer debt are largely absent from the CPI. Roughly $628 billion in revolving credit card debt now bears an average interest rate of about 22%, yet these costs aren’t reflected in consumer inflation data.
"It’s one thing that’s definitely impacting the way people spend money," said Pete Earle, economist at the American Institute for Economic Research and creator of the everyday price index that aims to track daily purchases that can’t be easily avoided. "It’s not really inflation, but it’s definitely something that should be taken into account."
Another gap in the CPI is its exclusion of property-related expenses. While it measures the cost of personal property insurance, it overlooks the cost of insuring the physical home - a critical oversight as climate-related risks drive premiums higher. According to Bloomberg analyst Andrew John Stevenson, omitting this from the CPI means that rising insurance premiums are only partially reflected in the overall inflation data.
The CPI’s "basket" also leaves out several items that have become significant in Americans’ budgets, including restaurant tips. Similarly, legal but selectively regulated goods, such as marijuana in some states, and gambling expenses remain unaccounted for. This reality adds to the perception that official inflation metrics don’t fully capture the true cost of living for many Americans.
The BLS admits that CPI falls short, writing on its website: "The CPI does not necessarily measure your own experience with price change," adding "A national average reflects millions of individual price experiences; it seldom mirrors a particular consumer’s experience."
The pricing challenges aren’t unique to the CPI. For example, the personal consumption expenditures price index, produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, also has some quirks when it comes to measuring certain expenses like health care. While the Fed prefers the PCE gauge, White House economists say that the CPI tends to more closely track consumers’ actual out-of-pocket spending. -Bloomberg
While inflation may appear to be abating on paper, Americans' financial reality is more complex - influenced by costs that extend beyond the basket of goods traditionally tracked by federal data.
The killing of German citizen Jamshid Sharmahd by the Iranian regime has triggered a wave of outrage among German politicians. But his daughter says the government could have done more.
Leading German politicians condemned theexecution of German-American citizen Jamshid Sharmahd in Iran this week, while his daughter Gazelle angrily condemned both the German and US governments for failing to do enough to work for his release.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on X: "The execution of Jamshid Sharmahd by the Iranian regime is a scandal that I condemn in the strongest possible terms. Jamshid Sharmahd was not even given the opportunity to defend himself against the charges against him in court. The German government has repeatedly and vigorously stood up for Mr. Sharmahd. My deepest condolences go out to his family.
BREAKING! Dem Operative Caught In Undercover Video Explaining How They Allegedly Stole 2020 Election in GA: From Kicking Out GOP Poll Watchers to Nursing Home Ballot Harvesting to Identifying A Driver in 2000 Mules
Although they could easily distinguish between combatant and non-combatant deaths, Hamas refuses to do so.
They [Hamas] fail to acknowledge that many of these so-called children were also combatants.
They do the same with women, conveying the impression that only men are terrorists.
Without the support of the media, this strategy would not succeed.
And useful ignoramuses on university campuses, along with bigots in international organizations, falsely accuse Israel of genocide, despite the successful efforts of the IDF to reduce civilian casualties to the minimum possible....
In the absence of an honest accounting, the media will continue to do Sinwar's nefarious work in increasing Palestinian casualties in order to increase the pressure on Israel.
Sadly, the media's dangerous cooperation with terrorists tells us more about them than about the war about which they purport to be "reporting."
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon on Monday launched an astonishing attack on the Biden-Harris administration by taking aim at the “onslaught” of red tape from Dem-backed regulators.
The Queens native, who reportedly had interest in becoming US Treasury secretary should Kamala Harris win the election, gave bureaucrats in Washington a tongue-lashing for hobbling the industry with a raft of new rules.
“It’s time to fight back,” Dimon told a conference of bankers in New York. “I’ve had it with this s–t.”
“Many banks are afraid to fight with their regulators, because they would just come and punish you,” he added.
“We don’t want to get involved in litigation just to make a point. But I think if you’re in a knife fight, you better damn well bring a knife.”
The 68-year-old poured scorn on the current administration’s plans for regulating the US banking industry, rattling off a list of what he described as ill-conceived rules.
Dimon singled out a blueprint aimed at helping banks absorb major economic shocks by forcing them to hold more capital on their balance sheets to weather any financial storms.
The proposal, known as Basel III, would see major lenders raise that emergency buffer by 9%. The veteran banker warned that “the devil would be in the details.”
“We are suing our regulators over and over and over because things are becoming unfair and unjust, and they are hurting companies, a lot of these rules are hurting lower-paid individuals,” he said.
Dimon hinted that the plans may not even survive the Nov. 5 presidential election, suggesting they were based on “stupid calculations.”
“The biggest problem I have with all these overlapping rules is that we are not stepping back and saying, ‘What could we do better to make the system work better,'” he told the annual forum of the American Bankers Association, a group that represents and lobbies for the US financial sector.
JPMorgan’s top boss also slammed Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, over a new rule that would make it easier for consumers to transfer their personal data between financial services providers.
Two banking lobby groups have already sued, saying the CFPB had “overstepped its statutory mandate.”
“Rohit is a very smart guy who has one major flaw, which I told him personally, which is that you use your brains to justify what you already think,” Dimon said of the staunch ally of left-wing Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
Last week, the New York Times parroted a scoop from Sept. 12 by The Post’s own Charles Gasparino that the JPMorgan chief executive would have preferred a role in any future Harris administration.
The eye-opening study revealed that more than 600 female athletes had lost medals in 29 sporting categories, totaling almost 900 medals going to men who identify as women in over 400 competitions.
"Over 890 medals, across 29 sports, stolen from women by men," Rowling wrote on X.
Today's journalists, much like trial lawyers, have a habit of cross-examining their subjects with the intent to find weaknesses rather than find the actual truth of a matter. They also often ask questions already knowing what kind of answer they're going to get. It's not about getting the answer, it's about planting seeds.
For example, every time the media presents a "question" regarding alleged collusion between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin the goal is not to get an honest answer, but to repeat the conspiracy theory as often as possible so that the accusation remains embedded in the collective consciousness.
This was once again the case at the recent BRICS Summit held in Kazan, Russia. Asking tough questions is one thing - but presenting accusations without any evidence to back them is another.
The far-left media have been debunked at every turn when it comes to the Russiagate narrative. Both Trump and Putin have denied any relationship and all the "evidence" that supposedly ties Trump to Putin has been exposed as fabricated. After nearly a decade of intense scrutiny if there was any legitimate collusion between Trump and Russia it would have been found by now.
Putin quickly pointed out that inquiries by US officials have found no collusion involving Trump and that the claims are nonsense. That should be the end of it, but again, the western media is not interested in facts, they're interested in narratives.
The establishment has also aimed its crosshairs at Elon Musk this week, with the Associated Press claiming an "anonymous source" confirmed to them that Musk has had regular phone calls with Vladimir Putin since 2022. Again, none of this is supported by concrete evidence and the goal of the media is simply to plant the idea out there in the minds of the public as if it means something nefarious is afoot.
Musk is a private citizen, not a government official, and he has the right to talk to whoever he pleases. It's not surprising for an international businessman to have contact with world leaders for any number of reasons. Not to mention, the US is not at war with Russia (officially), but the media is acting as if this is the case.
Putin talked extensively on the reasons for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, arguing that it was NATO involvement in sparking the Maidan Revolution in 2014 that led to Russia's decision to go to war. He also asserted that foreign military elements from NATO countries are heavily involved in Ukraine's defensive efforts on the ground, stating that "we are aware" what's really going on.
The Russian leader seems to be suggesting here that if Ukraine can invite foreign assets into the war, then so can Russia.
As for the presence of North Korean troops in Russia, Putin doesn't deny it. Satellite images and some leaked video seem to show North Korean soldiers in training areas near the eastern coast of Russia, but this is thousands of miles away from the Ukrainian front. There is no evidence that North Koreans are currently fighting in Ukraine. If this ends up being the intent, then yes, it would be considered an escalation by NATO, but not necessarily a rationale for NATO troops to enter the war.
Such a move would immediately trigger a world war; an outcome which the Ukrainians are certainly desperate for as their defensive lines collapse, but not an outcome which the majority of Americans and Europeans are willing to accept.
The move is expected to slash thousands of jobs in Volkswagen, according to workers' representatives. Germany is experiencing a sluggish economy and automakers deal with high production costs.
German automotive giant Volkswagen (VW) plans on shutting at least three plants in Germany, the company's works council said on Monday.
"Management is absolutely serious about all this. This is not saber-rattling in the collective bargaining round," the Reuters news agency cited Daniela Cavallo, Volkswagen's works council head, as telling several hundred employees in Wolfsburg.
"This is the plan of Germany's largest industrial group to start the sell-off in its home country of Germany," Cavallo added, without specifying which plants would be affected or how many of the company's nearly 300,000 staff in Germany could be laid off.
"All German VW plants are affected by these plans. None of them are safe," said Cavallo as she addressed VW workers at the company's Wolfsburg headquarters.
Cavallo said that VW management is also demanding a 10% pay cut and no other pay raises for the next two years. Cavallo and other labor leaders at VW vowed fierce resistance to the cutbacks.
Volkswagen's works council head, Daniela Cavallo told employees that all German VW plants would be impacted and that none were safeImage: Julian Stratenschulte/dpa/picture alliance
VW says company at 'decisive point' in history
Responding to an request for comment from VW, the company said it is "not taking part in speculation surrounding the confidential talks" with the IG Metall trade union, which represents a large proportion of the company's workforce.
"Volkswagen is at a decisive point in its corporate history. The situation is serious, and the responsibility of the negotiating partners is immense," the company added.
"Without comprehensive measures to restore our competitiveness, we will not be able to afford essential future investments," the statement quotes Human Resources official Gunnar Kilian.
"Among the reasons for the necessary restructurings is the fact that the European automobile market has shrunk by two million vehicles since 2020. It is stagnating and will not recover in the foreseeable future. Volkswagen has a share of about 25 percent of this market. That means the company is short about 500,000 cars," the VW said in an emailed statement.
Workers' union expresses outrage
The IG Metall trade union has decried the news.
"This is a deep stab in the heart of the hard-working VW workforce," German news agency DPA quoted IG Metall District Manager Thorsten Gröger as saying.
VW mulls German job cuts, factory closures as sales plummet
02:40
"We expect Volkswagen and its board of management to outline viable concepts for the future at the negotiating table, instead of fantasies of cutbacks, where the employer side has so far presented little more than empty phrases."
VW's CEO Thomas Schäfer said in a statement that costs at plants in Germany have become particularly high.
"We cannot continue as before," Schäfer said. "We are not productive enough at our German sites and our factory costs are currently 25% to 50% higher than we had planned. This means that individual German plants are twice as expensive as the competition."
VW reported a 14% drop in net profit in the first half of the year and was forced to terminate a decades-old job security agreement with unions in Germany.
How did the German government react?
German government spokesman Wolfgang Büchner said that Berlin was aware of VW's challenges and had been in close communication with the company and worker representatives.
"The chancellor's position on this is clear, however, namely that possible wrong management decisions from the past must not be to the detriment of employees. The aim now is to maintain and secure jobs," the spokesperson told a regular briefing.
It was not immediately clear if Büchner was referring to the so-called dieselgate scandal-turned-criminal case, in which former VW CEO Martin Winterkorn has been accused of perjury, market manipulation and commercial fraud.
VW operates a total of 10 plants in Germany, with six situated in Lower Saxony, three in the eastern state of Saxony and one in Hesse in the west.
Volkswagen has never closed a plant in Germany, and has not closed a plant anywhere in the world in more than three decades.
Netanyahu's actions have neutralized more Western adversaries responsible for decades of bloodshed than NATO, the CIA, FBI, or Interpol, combined, yet he’s often met with rebuke rather than gratitude.
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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