Authored by Kurt Schlichter via Townhall.com,Americans are more divided than we have been since the first time the Democrats started and lost a civil war, with every norm being tossed out and every legitimate exercise of lawfully attained power by us…

People like nothing better than to see an arrogant bureaucrat get cut down to size after screaming the words "Don't you know who I am?"  This is essentially what Rhode Island State Prosecutor and Democrat, Devon Flanigan, did when she faced…

After years of ratcheting tensions between nuclear-armed rivals China and India, which actually came to literal blows along their disputed Himalayan border over the last several years - including the deadly 2020 Galwan valley clashes among rival troops, which left dozens…

As promised by Donald Trump? “We’re going to have prices down- I think you’re going to see some pretty drastic price reductions.” Associated Press, Trump holds a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, YouTube (January 7, 2025). And here’s the data we have. Figure 1: CPI…

A federal judge has issued a split ruling in a lawsuit over the "Alligator Alcatraz" immigration detention center located in the Florida Everglades - ruling that Detainees' claims that they lacked access to immigration courts were moot after the Trump administration designated the…

More details are emerging about President Trump's latest show of force in Latin America aimed at narco-terrorist cartels fueling America's drug crisis, which claims 100,000 lives a year. According to Reuters, three Aegis destroyers, surveillance aircraft, and an attack submarine are being…

Developers of a controversial 70-mile, 500,000-volt transmission line cutting across three Maryland counties to power data centers in Northern Virginia's "spy country data center alley" have faced mounting backlash from residents, prompting the project's backers to request U.S. Marshals to escort survey crews after…

Submitted by American Truckers United, In a bold move amid mounting highway tragedies, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy has launched a scathing investigation into "rogue states" accused of flouting federal rules on Commercial Driver's Licenses (CDLs), directly linking lax enforcement to deadly…

In a shocking incident that underscores the growing dangers of industrial automation, Chinese surgeons have pulled off what medical experts are calling a miracle surgery after a robotic arm nearly decapitated a factory worker in a horrific accident in May that…

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has filed an official open records request to the Trump administration seeking information about a federal immigration enforcement operation that took place outside the venue where the governor…

by Calculated Risk on 8/19/2025 07:51:00 PM Note: Mortgage rates are from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are for top tier scenarios.Wednesday: • At 7:00 AM ET, The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.• During the…

Four weeks after a DC police commander was suspended amid accusations that he manipulated crime statistics, the Department of Justice has launched a wide-ranging investigation into whether the department has been faking data to make crime rates lower, the Washington Post reports, citing two senior…

Alas, and still an underrated economist.

Just the day after the historic Trump-Putin summit in Alaska to discuss finding peace in Ukraine, the famous economist and UN adviser Jeffrey Sachs made his first ever appearance before the Ron Paul Institute's (RPI) annual conference in Washington DC. Sachs'…

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),San Diego-based Tandem Diabetes Care, Inc. agreed to voluntarily recall insulin pumps used to manage blood sugar, the company said in an Aug. 12 announcement by the Food and Drug Administration.The Food…

When a news company is forced to completely rebrand to distance themselves politically from their parent company, you know they have hit rock bottom. The MSNBC news network announced this week that they will be rebranding and will become My Source New…

Authored by Robert Rapier via OilPrice.com,Global nuclear generation reached 2,817 TWh in 2024, surpassing the previous record from 2021, with most growth coming from non-OECD countries.Asia Pacific, led by China’s 13% annual growth rate, now accounts for over 28% of global…

President Trump is planning to appoint Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey to share the #2 position at the FBI with Dan Bongino, for now, to serve as "an integral part of this important mission," according to a statement from Director Kash…

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,Talk show shit sandwich Jimmy Kimmel is upset that Americans on the right are not speaking out in favour of Stephen Colbert’s freedom of speech.“[It’s disappointing] we don’t see more people on the right stepping up…

While the rest of Europe bickers over the safety and scope of artificial intelligence, Albania is tapping it to accelerate its EU accession. It’s even mulling an AI-run ministry. Prime Minister Edi Rama mentioned AI last month as a tool to…

Armored knights vanished when gunpowder weapons made them ineffective, and cavalry vanished when motorized transport and tanks arrived on the battlefield. I believe infantry will likely be the next category of warriors to disappear. History shows that survival, cost-effectiveness, and competitive…

Based on residential investment construction July release (starts 1.428 mn > 1.29 mn Bbg consensus; permits 1.354mn < 1.39mn Bbg consensus): Figure 1: Residential fixed investment (bold black), Survey of Professional Forecasters August median f’cast (light blue), GDPNow of 8/19 (dark…

by Calculated Risk on 8/19/2025 01:11:00 PM This is something I check occasionally.The Department of Transportation (DOT) reported: Travel on all roads and streets changed by +1.5% (+4.1 billion vehicle miles) for April 2025 as compared with April 2024. Travel for…

Yves here. Keep in mind that what is blandly depicted as “date centers'” use, which creates the impression that it is due to all sorts of cloud users, such as for smartphones and small businesses, is increasingly due to AI, particularly…

by Calculated Risk on 8/19/2025 09:15:00 AM Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Housing Starts Increased to 1.428 million Annual Rate in JulyA brief excerpt: Total housing starts in July were well above expectations and starts in May and…

by Calculated Risk on 8/19/2025 08:30:00 AM From the Census Bureau: Permits, Starts and Completions Housing Starts: Privately-owned housing starts in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,428,000. This is 5.2 percent above the revised June estimate of…

In my posts The Sputnik vs. DeepSeek Moment and The Answers, I contrasted America’s reaction to Sputnik—expanded funding for education in math, science, and foreign languages; creation of agencies like ARPA; higher federal R&D spending; recruitment of foreign talent; and reduced…

Little joys of big people My Weekend via machine translation (Micael T). Trust me, this is delicious. Also makes me feel deficient by not possessing mildly eccentric amusements. Puppy fat jabs: are our pets next in line for weight-loss drugs? Guardian.…

The “Chat Control” law threatens to transform the Internet into an even more centrally controlled, surveilled environment. And it could be a legal reality by October.   Regular readers are by now familiar with the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which we…

Yves here. With the Western blather about “land swaps” as part of a settlement of the Russia-Ukraine conflict still being treated as a legitimate idea, due among other things to remarks by US special advisor Steve Witkoff over the weekend, the…

Yves here. We’re featuring this post more as a critical thinking exercise rather than for the findings of the study posted below, although they are also of interest. As you’ll see, a study performed using 2000 to 2005 data in Germany…

This 1103 pp. book reflects a great deal of learning, and it is often interesting to read.  It is well-written.  So virtually everyone can absorb interesting things from it.  In that sense I am happy to recommend it. The book has…

trillions of dollars that appear to be economic growth are just borrowing from the future — a debt that will eventually have to be repaid with taxes or inflation. Both will kill growth. Consumers are in the same boat. Families have…

Is gold supplanting the dollar? Did the use of sanction by the US reduce holdings of dollars by targeted central banks? Did the 2018-19 tariffs reduce holdings of dollars by countries hit with Section 232 tariffs? Jeff Frankel, Hiro Ito and…

by Calculated Risk on 8/18/2025 08:31:00 PM From Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Rates Trickle to Another Higher LowMortgage rates are as high as they've been on almost any other day this month. You'd have to go back to August…

Here’re the July PPI and CPI for coffee. Figure 1: PPI for roasted coffee, n.s.a. (blue), and CPI for coffee, s.a. (tan), all in logs 2025M01=0. Source: BLS via FRED, and author’s calculations. Note that near month futures for coffee are…

by Calculated Risk on 8/18/2025 03:28:00 PM Container traffic gives us an idea about the volume of goods being exported and imported - and usually some hints about the trade report since LA area ports handle about 40% of the nation's…

From Bunn and Pomerleau/Tax Foundation, “Will E.J. Antoni Raise Your Taxes?”: Every year the IRS adjusts more than a dozen tax thresholds to account for inflation, a process called indexing. In 2020 the 10% tax bracket applied to income up to…

Sub-Saharan Africa’s fertility decline has lagged behind that of other regions. Using large-scale, individual-level data, I provide new evidence on how fertility in sub-Saharan Africa compares with that in East Asia, South Asia, and Latin America by examining differences in fertility…

The New Jersey and Virginia 2025 gubernatorial elections provide a preview of the 2026 mid-term elections. Virginia looks set to elect its first female governor, with both major parties having nominated a woman. Unfortunately for the GOP, their candidate Lt. Governor…

by Calculated Risk on 8/18/2025 12:26:00 PM Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: 3rd Look at Local Housing Markets in JulyA brief excerpt: First, here are some comments from the Houston Association of REALTORS®: HOUSTON HOME PRICES EASE IN…

1. Arlington travel notes, by Henry Oliver. 2. Class and air conditioning in Germany. 3. Nate Silver Department of Yup. 4. The importance of adaptive prompt behavior. 5. Weapons is an excellent movie (trailer at the link).  There are (very) modest…

by Calculated Risk on 8/18/2025 10:00:00 AM The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reported the housing market index (HMI) was at 32, down from 33 last month. Any number below 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as poor…

If you care about your health, do not fly Lufthansa. You might be booted from the plane for wearing a mask. And if you have friends or family who are immunocompromised, such as being on chemo, tell them to avoid Lufthansa…

The transcript from this week’s, MiB: Deven Parekh, Insight Partners on PE/VC, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod…

by Calculated Risk on 8/18/2025 08:11:00 AM Altos reports that active single-family inventory was up 0.1% week-over-week.Inventory is now up 37.7% from the seasonal bottom in January.   Usually, inventory is up about 22% from the seasonal low by this week in…

Fans Say Costco’s New Sparkling Protein Drink Is “Revolutionary” Delish And just like that, the CEO of Genius Gourmet, the maker of the “revolutionary” sparkling protein water just deleted his LinkedIn. 👀🫠 https://t.co/1q6jRLxz3l pic.twitter.com/uEIcEytZEl — James Li (@5149jamesli) August 17, 2025…

It would seem fitting to try to pick my way through the press accounts of the Trump-Putin summit, except they are abjectly awful, chock-full of obvious bogosities and spin. Exhibit 1 of the horrorshow of mainstream reporting is the Wall Street…

We’ve been tracking the story of RealPage—a purported rental management software company owned by private equity giant Thoma Bravo that in reality acts as a rent-fixing middleman for property giants across the country—for some time, and it’s unfortunately time for another…

By Alexander Kaurov and Naomi Oreskes. Kaurov is a Ph.D. astrophysicist and Ph.D. candidate in the School of Science in Society at Victoria University of Wellington, specializing in computational analysis of scientific discourse. Oreskes is a historian of science at Harvard…