Summarizing CBO, Fed and other analyses of Trump's truly awful economic policies, so you have it all in one place for sharing. 🔴Bottom 80% are expected to be worse off from the combination of Trump's tax bill (OBBBA) and tariffs. 1/ budgetlab.yale.edu/research/…

Trump came to Corporate America hat in hand, flashing the loaded gun tucked in his waistband. Companies responded with gifts, praise, “donations,” and help executing legally questionable parts of the Trump agenda. Some capitulated. Others more gleefully collaborated. They were all shortsighted. thebulwark.com/p/corporate-a…

trump’s war w/ iran: great for big oil, not so much for the average american paying that price at the pump…

At this point, data and sentiment are aligned: the average worker is worse off today than a year ago. And unlike the wealthy, most workers can't count on an AI-fueled stock market boom to take the sting out of a shrinking paycheck.

Every discussion of recently disappointing wage growth should stare at this chart for 10 seconds

The media previously reported this as if it was only in France. It wasn’t.

Two numbers explain 89% of midterm results since 1950 in the House: the generic ballot and the seats the president’s party holds. This year, that would translate to a Democratic gain of 33 seats. My @Morning_Joe Chart

Trump promised to raise wages. They've barely budged under his Presidency. And since his war in Iran, real wages have actually fallen 1.3%.

Younger Americans had more average household wealth at age 34 than Boomers did at the same age.

Sex tourism is out. Cult tourism is in.

Word clouds from @lxeagle17's latest people — People don't really know what Democrats stand for, which is not ideal. But they DO know what Republicans stand for and that's worse. theargumentmag.com/p/how-rep…

My recap of the employer cost index for September/Q3: health insurance costs are eating up your pay raise macromostly.substack.com/p/e…

Meantime, the ECI shows a sharp rise in health insurance costs pushing up U.S. employers’ benefit costs, even as growth in wages and salaries slows. Wage growth has slowed to 3.1% as of Q3, while benefit costs are up 3.9%. Benefit cost growth has traditionally run slightly below wages, but now it is running slightly above them. This means workers are getting less of their compensation as pay and more in insurance premiums, which are driven mostly by things outside of employers' control. This raises a few questions: Do higher fixed costs for workers on health coverage lead businesses to hire more cautiously (or shift to part-time workers who don't get benefits)? And note: if employers respond by passing more costs onto workers through higher premiums or less coverage, the ECI won't capture this.

How does health spending in the U.S. compare to other countries? healthsystemtracker.org/char…

Over $28,000 a year for family health insurance premiums, up from $6,000 in 1999. And that’s before deductibles, copays, and surprise bills. The system is fundamentally broken.

Important chart from @EconBerger Healthcare costs are soaring again for employers (and frankly for most Americans). Take a look at the green line on the chart. A key reason employers aren't eager to boost wages right now is b/c they are paying a lot more toward healthcare costs. "Wage growth is being outpaced by benefit cost growth. And a major recent driver for benefit cost growth is employer health insurance contributions: they’re growing at 6.4% Y/Y, matching the fastest pace in two decades." - Economist Guy Berger

Wages and salaries, adjusted for inflation, were down 0.6 percent in September from a year earlier. Lots of talk about the "divide" between sentiment and data, but it doesn't seem hard to understand why people are unhappy when their pay is declining in real terms.

Picard taught me more about leadership than any MBA could. He never raised his voice to be heard. He listened before he decided. He let Riker, Data, Worf argue him out of positions, and then owned the call completely. When he was wrong, he said so in front of the crew. When he was right, he didn't gloat. And when he had to stand alone — against Starfleet, against the Borg, against a Cardassian with four lights — he stood. That is the whole job. Build people who will tell you the truth, then carry the weight yourself. Patrick Stewart played it so well that a generation of us mistook a character for a manual. Turns out the manual was fine. A great actor, and a Yorkshire kid who started as an obituary writer. Today the obituary is his. Make it so, Sir Patrick. Rest well.

If Republicans keep the Senate: Abortion: More judges who could uphold restrictions on reproductive care. Courts: More lifetime Trump appointees, including any Supreme Court replacement. Gun safety: Greater risk of courts striking down existing gun laws. Health care: Continued support for coverage cuts and reduced federal health spending. Social Security and Medicare: More support for proposals to restrict benefits or eligibility. Immigration: Continued support for expanded detention and deportations. Democracy: Fewer Senate checks on presidential overreach and abuses of power. Corruption: Less Senate scrutiny of misconduct and conflicts of interest. Education: More support for diverting resources from public schools and weakening civil rights enforcement. Climate: More appointees who could weaken environmental protections. Workers: Weaker enforcement of labor laws and union protections. LGBTQ rights: More appointees who could undermine civil rights and access to transgender health care. Consumer protection: Weaker oversight of banks, corporations, and predatory lenders.

Real exports of "travel services" have been declining for five consecutive quarters. Travel services exports is the BEA’s measure of foreign visitor spending in the US — tourists, business travelers, and international students.