By Robert Romano 16-64-year-olds have almost fully returned to U.S. labor markets after the Covid pandemic, the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows . In Feb. 2020, right before the Covid pandemic would shut down the global economy for several months, labor participation among 16-to-64-year-olds was 74.4 percent. By April 2020, when more than […]

By Robert Romano U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has introduced legislation, the “No ESG at TSP Act” that would block the $762 billion federal employee retirement plan from making any investments in funds that utilize Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors to restrict capital flows to oil and gas development in the […]

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By Robert Romano The combination of the $30.4 trillion national debt and the strong dollar underscore both the advantages and the perils of the U.S. dollar’s so-called “exorbitant privilege” as the world’s reserve currency. That is, when the economy is in turbulent waters and a recession appears to loom, financial institutions and central […]

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By Robert Romano Fertility in the U.S. remains below 2 live births per woman for the thirteenth year in a row, at 1.66 live births per woman in 2021, up slightly from 1.64 in 2020, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) . 2.1 live births per woman is considered the rate needed for […]

  By Rick Manning For years major U.S. domestic sugar users like the candy industry, have pushed for the elimination of the U.S. government sugar price support system with the goal of flooding the market with sugar from around the world. Now Americans should realize why this […]

By David Potter Baby formula shortages in the United States have been an issue since 2021 but recently have become much worse. For the first 7 months of 2021, out of stock (OOS) rates were between 2 percent and 8 percent. The second half of last year […]

By Robert Romano Ever since inflation first rose above 5 percent in June 2021, the Federal Reserve has kept its policy rate far below that of the inflation rate , even as it reached more than 8 percent the last two months, in order to keep a more accommodative policy stance coming out of the brief 2020 Covid recession. Even now, with […]

By Robert Romano President Joe Biden is promising to boost U.S. production of wheat to offset the loss of Ukrainian and Russian exports from the Black Sea thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that has shut down the ports there, stating at a farm in Illinois on May 11 that he would extend crop insurance for […]