Bill McBride

I am at threads @calculatedriskblog" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">threads.net/@calculatedris… At Bluesky @calculatedrisk.bsky.social Blog: calculatedriskblog.com Newsletter: calculatedrisk.substack.com

@FreightAlley Come post on the sky. We need you!

If true, this suggests that the Big Box retailers anticipate (or know) that tariffs with China are in for a quick reset in the coming days or weeks.

@pmarca @elonmusk If either of you are interested in what actually happened, I wrote (with facts) about this. What Happened to "Paying off the National Debt"? calculatedriskblog.com/2024/05/what-h…

#econtwitter has moved to bsky.app

@joshuabcrutcher @beebee1234321 "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - MLK

@beebee1234321 @calculatedrisk Been a long time follower... 12+ years. Seems like he has lost his mind over Trump and Elon. It's a sad shame.

@beebee1234321 I try to stay data driven. I just thought this was funny. All my econ posts have moved to Bluesky.

@calculatedrisk you might have a problem Bill. your particular fixation with Elon comes through regularly. I have great respect for your work and have been a substack subscriber for years. your data-focused mindset it so refreshing in the real estate space. strange behavior, this.

@dapstats If you are an American and believe in the Constitution, the answer is obvious.

@calculatedrisk In your view, how does 1/6/21 compare to the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Imperial Japan? Same level?

Today marks the 4-year anniversary of one of the most heinous acts in US history. Jan 6th 2021, is a day that will live in infamy. For those who took an oath to preserve and protect the constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, this is solemn day of remembrance.

@dapstats One is foreign enemy; the other is domestic. Hence the oath that references both....

@calculatedrisk One of these is not like the other #PearlHarbor #January6th

@PiGuy19 No one mentioned BYD at the party.

@calculatedrisk Good luck buying a BYD in the US!

@timehack @TKTOM Debt to the Penny | U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-… Here is the debt (updated daily). The "Debt Ceiling" is a joke.

@TKTOM @calculatedrisk The marker for the national debt is called the “national debt”

@noalpha_allbeta Look at Florida. Remember that state?

@calculatedrisk remember that island chain in the Pacific the experts claimed would be under water two decades ago?

@TKTOM The Treasury keeps track of the amount of debt. The "debt ceiling" was originally intended so the Congress didn't have to approve each transaction. Now it is just for politics (the budget determines the amount of debt approved).

@calculatedrisk Bill, it has nothing to do with paying the bills. It is simply a marker for how much debt the country has accumulated. An important metric by the way..

@feelthebyrn1 OK, I’m in that group. But that doesn’t mean I’m an expert at everything.

@calculatedrisk Repeated success in business domains is a good metric Dalio's observation about 3x successful completion being a good indicator of competency

@TheStalwart He referenced posts by both Tanta and me. And wrote this when T passed away ... archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.…

One theme in a lot of the Krugman appreciation posts is how early he was in identifying and linking to relatively unknown bloggers that he thought were talented.

@PinotandPizza I’m thinking of eliminating the ads

@calculatedrisk Huge fan of your work, but your site has become unusable. The ads block everything and I'm gotten redirected a few times by apparent bad actors.

@marketmodel Yes. Contractors is where to look for savings. Start with Space-X :-)

Over the last 30 years, while the federal contractor workforce has grown, the number of direct federal government employees has remained relatively stable or has only seen marginal increases: - **Direct Federal Employees**: - Around the early 1990s, the federal workforce was approximately 3 million strong, but it saw fluctuations due to various factors like government downsizing initiatives, hiring freezes, and the natural ebb and flow of government employment due to retirements and new hires. - By 2023, the direct federal workforce was reported to be around 2.95 million employees, which indicates that despite slight variations, the number has not drastically changed from what was observed in earlier decades. This stability is partly due to caps like the Whitten Cap, which have kept the number of federal employees relatively constant since the mid-1950s. - **Comparison with Contractors**: - **1990s**: At the beginning of this period, the ratio of contractors to federal employees was roughly 1 to 1 or slightly less. - **2015**: By this time, Paul Light's research suggested that contractors outnumbered federal employees with a ratio of about 2.5 to 1, with an estimated 3.7 million contractors against around 2 million federal employees (excluding Postal Service workers and military personnel). - **Recent Years**: The trend of employing more contractors than direct government employees has continued, with the contractor workforce significantly outnumbering federal employees. For instance, even with the federal workforce at nearly 3 million in 2023, the contractor number was much higher due to the extensive use of contract services across government functions. This comparison highlights a significant shift in how the U.S. federal government operates, moving towards a model where a large portion of its workforce is not directly employed but rather contracted. This shift has implications for policy, oversight, accountability, and even the culture of government service, as contractors often work under different conditions and with different expectations than federal employees.

@Hotelvalueguy Not misleading. Read entire article.

@calculatedrisk Misleading - it’s % of total US employment

@Panopticon_KAS Combination of low sales in Oct 2023, and lower mortgage rates in August and September when contracts were signed. Sales will still be historically VERY low.

Here’s an early read on tomorrow’s single-family housing starts release. October’s +4% month-over-month rise was better than we usually see in our @JBREC homebuilder survey.

Q4 GDP Tracking: Mid 2% Range calculatedriskblog.com/2024/11/q4-gdp…