Category: Economics (Page 4 of 10)

America is going to get back to manufacturing

May 8, 2025 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

High-School Juniors With $70,000-a-Year Job Offers

If America is going to get back to manufacturing, companies will need to get involved to make sure that there are trained people to hire. There will need to be more of this.

PHILADELPHIA—Elijah Rios won’t graduate from high school until next year, but he already has a job offer—one that pays $68,000 a year.

Rios, 17 years old, is a junior taking welding classes at Father Judge, a Catholic high school in Philadelphia that works closely with companies looking for workers in the skilled trades. Employers are dealing with a shortage of such workers as baby boomers retire. They have increasingly begun courting high-school students like Rios—a hiring strategy they say is likely to become even more crucial in the coming years.

WSJ: China’s economy is declining.

May 7, 2025 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

It’s true. Don’t trust anything the Chinese government says.

How Bad Is China’s Economy?

Also, be skeptical of reports that China is in big trouble.

This WSJ article notes that the Chinese government has stopped reporting a wide range of economic data, and that could mean that the tariffs are having an effect.

My first house

April 28, 2025 / Richard Nestoff / 2 Comments

A week ago, when I posted about my house in a different timeline, I looked up my first house on the county auditor site. I bought it on April 28th, 1992, and sold it on April 28th, 1998. Owning it for exactly six years is notable, so an anniversary post seemed like a good idea.

Arctic Analysis

March 2, 2025 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

IM: The Arctic Gambit

I am always going to click on an article that sounds like the name of a Tom Clancy novel. This article opens with a photo of a submarine conning tower jutting through the ice. There are a few other nice photos and what seems to be a deep analysis of the geopolitics of the Arctic.

I don’t know anything about the organization, IM, that posted the article, but it seems balanced and informative. I only read a bit of it, was in over my head, and Sparky wants to go outside.

Let me know if it’s worth reading.

Ultra-processed foods can’t be trusted.

March 2, 2025 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

Ultra-processed foods and cardio-metabolic health

We are doing terribly. Ultra-processed foods make up 58% of the average American’s diet.

Foreign trade by state.

February 28, 2025 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

With foreign trade and tariffs in the news, that map of Top Import Partner of Every U.S. State is a little bit interesting.

Home ownership is a struggle.

February 25, 2025 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

Guardian: Home ownership has become a nightmare for many Americans.

Owning a home isn’t for everyone.

Time to get frivolous

January 7, 2025 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

On Sunday, President Biden repealed the Social Security Windfall Elimination Provision. Since I will start getting a windfall, being frugal is pointless.

Tramping around in the snow with Sparky, I get wet boots. Two weeks ago, I knocked up a drying rack for my boots using shelf brackets, scrap wood and my CPAP machine. It folds up for easy storage.

Now that the SSFA is passed and frivolous spending is encouraged, I spent $45 on Amazon to get a boot dryer like regular people use.

I am eager to try it out.

Biden is getting ready to screw me over.

December 26, 2024 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

Congress dragged me back in the game, so now I want to win.

Social Security is a game. It’s not like roulette, where the risk corresponds to the reward. It’s not much like blackjack where there is a clear strategy to narrow the odds. Social Security is more like that Fun Fair “Mystery Fishing” game where every player gets a prize, but there are better prizes and worser prizes.

More than two-thirds of NATO countries have paid their dues.

December 15, 2024 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

AP NATO Defense Spending

A record 23 of NATO’s 32 member nations are hitting the Western military alliance’s defense spending target this year, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday, as Russia’s war in Ukraine has raised the threat of expanding conflict in Europe.

Trump doesn’t get enough credit for calling bullshit on NATO. In 2016, Trump made it clear that if member countries didn’t spend 2% of GDP for defense, the US may not be as supportive. The corporate media, progressives and anti-Trumpers cried about his incivility and lack of decorum.