Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
Jerome Powell says the Gen Z hiring nightmare is real: ‘Kids coming out of college…are having a hard time finding jobs’
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/jerome-powell-says-gen-z-212422015.html
“Inflation, as measured by the Fed’s preferred price index, remained at 2.6 percent in July, the most recent month in which data are available. The Fed’s target is 2 percent. Moreover, in August, the consumer price index, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses to measure inflation, increased by 0.4 percent—the greatest monthly increase in inflation since January…
The FOMC acknowledged in its own announcement that “inflation has moved up and remains somewhat elevated” while the unemployment rate “remains low.” Increasing the fed funds rate is one of the Fed’s primary tools to combat inflationary pressures; lowering it is the opposite of what the Fed should do if it’s seriously concerned about inflation. Apparently, it’s not.”
https://reason.com/2025/09/18/the-federal-reserve-cuts-rates-with-inflation-still-hot-is-political-pressure-winning/
“Inflation hit its highest annualized level since January by rising to 2.9 percent in August”
https://reason.com/2025/09/11/americans-want-lower-costs-but-inflation-just-hit-its-highest-mark-since-january/
“Aside from his norm-breaking appeal, Milei’s approach is far different than Trump’s. Milei vowed free-market reforms to overturn decades of populist Perónism—a statist ideology that infected Argentina’s politics since Juan Domingo Perón won the presidency in 1946. His authoritarian approach has dominated the country’s politics for 80 years, with Milei beating Perónist opponents.
By contrast, Trump is overturning America’s historical embrace of free markets and free trade. He sets himself up as an all-powerful charismatic leader, inserts the feds deeply into the economy, and expands the reach of police and military forces. Like Perón, he’s doing it in the name of the “working class.” The U.S. Department of State once described Perónism as a “vague concept of social justice in some ways more akin to a religion than a political movement,” which sounds eerily like MAGA.
Perónism is more avowedly leftist than Trumpism, but MAGA’s “right-wing” policies sometimes seem indistinguishable from left-wing ones. Argentina’s populist movement has been successful at one thing: turning one of the world’s wealthiest countries into an impoverished basket case. Americans think of Argentina as a benighted third-world nation. But as economist Dan Mitchell explains, it was the 10th wealthiest nation in the world when Perón took over. It was often viewed as a European nation that happened to be in Latin America.
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On an unrelated note, Milei isn’t smitten by overseas authoritarians, unlike our president. Overall, Milei is using his power to loosen the government’s grip, whereas Trump—although he occasionally reduces regulations—is centralizing government power. The two men have bad hair and unpredictable temperaments, but beyond that the similarities dissipate quickly.”
https://reason.com/2025/08/22/trump-is-embracing-the-same-economic-populism-that-destroyed-argentina/
“Americans who enjoy German lagers, Belgian saisons, and Czech pilsners will get no relief from the higher tariffs that President Donald Trump has poured on their favorite brews.
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The deal locks in the 15 percent tariffs that Trump has imposed on most European goods imported into the U.S., but it also serves as a promise from the Trump administration not to target European goods with product-specific tariffs that could be announced in the coming weeks or months—including potentially huge new tariffs on pharmaceuticals, something the White House has been teasing for months. The deal also creates a pathway for the United States to reduce its tariffs on European cars to the 15 percent threshold, once the E.U. reduces some of its own tariffs on American industrial goods.”
https://reason.com/2025/08/22/trumps-new-trade-deal-with-the-e-u-leaves-out-beer-wine-booze/
“As President Donald Trump’s tariffs make life less affordable and predictable for Americans, they’re also threatening to make it less creative. American craft stores are struggling to keep up with ever-changing trade policies, which are making the foreign-made products they stock more expensive and difficult to access. Many foreign craft supply companies are now unable to ship to American consumers at all.”
https://reason.com/2025/08/28/tariffs-will-simply-put-us-all-out-of-business-trumps-trade-war-is-crushing-american-crafters/
“President Donald Trump’s tariff regime is making everything from American-made steel weights, imported yarn, and Amazon’s “everyday essentials” more expensive while his immigration crackdown is causing worker shortages in key industries. These policies will work in tandem to slow down already expensive deliveries of your favorite goods.
https://reason.com/2025/08/29/trumps-tariffs-and-immigration-policies-are-why-your-amazon-packages-are-so-expensive-and-will-take-forever/
“”Does ‘for cause’ require something more substantial than a mere allegation of wrongdoing, such as a formal charge, or a conviction, or even something else?” asks Reason’s Damon Root in a great piece on the precedent the Supreme Court might lean on (Namely Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935) and Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (2020)). “Here’s another question to ask: Is the mortgage fraud allegation that’s been leveled against Cook merely a pretext designed to cover the fact that Trump is actually firing Cook for illegal political reasons?””
https://reason.com/2025/08/29/trumps-fed-coup/
“Denver’s high minimum wage, especially its low tip credit, has unintentionally undermined the financial viability of full-service, labor-intensive restaurants. As costs outpace revenue and margins evaporate, once-thriving independent establishments are closing in droves, eroding the city’s cultural fabric and economic diversity.
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Restaurant operators and advocacy groups agree that Covid sparked the decline, but rising costs since have continued to cripple the industry. Property taxes, utilities, insurance, food and drink prices, rent, and one of the highest minimum wages in the country — higher than in Los Angeles or New York — are straining already razor-thin margins.
The city’s low tip credit, which results in a high minimum wage for tipped workers, is a particular pain point.
Denver City Council unanimously passed a minimum wage increase in November 2019 — just four months before the pandemic hit — and it was fully implemented citywide by 2022. Today, the base minimum wage is $18.81 an hour and the tipped wage is $15.79 — increases of about 70 percent and 95 percent, respectively.
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Per 2019 legislation, wage increases are uncapped and rise annually with the Consumer Price Index. In 2026, the base wage will be $19.29. For operators like Ms. Tronco and Mr. Seidel, who said that labor now consumes more than half his revenue, the math no longer works.
“When you force an operator to give raises every January 1 to the group of people who’s already making the most money, it chokes our ability to give a salaried person or an hourly cook a raise,”
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To keep her business alive, Ms. Tronco has cut the hosts and bussers she hired when opening and reduced weeknight server shifts. She raises her menu prices every six months to keep up with costs. Her numbers have taken a hit: Sales are down an average of 10 percent this year.
“It just feels like whack-a-mole,” Ms. Tronco said. “Inflation has affected everyone … Now we’ve got a tariff situation and all my wine importers are telling me that everything is going to go up $3, $4 a bottle.”
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Mr. Padró said the small tip credit is the industry’s biggest burden. He supports a higher base wage, even up to $25, because most of his employees already earn above that. He said that his servers and bartenders average $38 and $44, respectively. Expanding the tip credit would alleviate some of the burden faced by operators.
“I have 17-year-old kids pouring coffee for their teachers, making more than them,” he said.”
https://www.slowboring.com/p/denver-piece
“Senate Republicans have already said they plan to move quickly to confirm Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers Chair Stephen Miran to fill one current vacancy. If Cook loses a pending legal challenge and is dismissed — and her replacement is confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate —Trump-appointed Fed governors would hold four of the seven seats on the central bank’s board.
That majority, in turn, would be enough to control the reappointment of the 12 regional bank presidents throughout the country who also have a say on rates and whose five-year terms are scheduled to expire in February.
And that, in effect, could give Trump control of the Fed’s policy-making Federal Open Market Committee, whose refusal to lower interest rates throughout his second term has put the president on the warpath with Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Any exertion of White House control over the reappointment process for regional bank presidents would represent an extraordinary break in precedent.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/27/how-cooks-dismissal-would-upend-the-fed-00527582