Prelude before the fall: Imports jumped up significantly in February and March 2025, increasing the trade deficit as many importers stocked up in anticipation of higher tariffs. April data comes out June 5, but you should expect BOTH exports and imports to start falling. And to keep doing so.

Face the State - Dr. Elliott Parker (Segment 2) Arianna continues her discussion with Professor Parker - talking about tariffs, unemployment and the stock market.

Here is Part 2 of my interview: www.2news.com/video/face-t...

Face the State: Dr. Elliott Parker (Segment 1) Arianna sits down with Dr. Elliott Parker, Professor of Economics at UNR, to talk about the economy.

If you are ever having trouble falling asleep, an economist talking about trade and the economy should do the trick. I was interviewed on Face the State. Here is Part 1: www.2news.com/video/face-t...

Did an interview tonight with Arianna Bennett of Reno's Channel 2 News, the CBS affiliate KTVN, for a program called Face the State. It should air this weekend, if you have nothing better to do than listen to an economist talk about tariffs. See www.2news.com/features/fac... for past shows.

What is average growth? It's noisy data, so here I show the annual average growth rate per presidential term.
It averaged 3.6% under Democratic presidents and 2.6% under the GOP. Adjusting for population, that's 2.5% under Dems and 1.5% under Reps. The pattern holds if you consider the time trend.

Rising deficits in 2023-24 was partly a function of rising interest payments on the national debt. Another gift the Federal Reserve gave Pres. Biden, following on the inflation created by an excessive monetary stimulus in 2020-21 and delaying the tightening until Powell was reappointed.

Wait, that wasn't an Onion story? It is so hard to tell parody from real life these days.

I read a breathless story about all the new tariff revenue coming in to federal coffers: projecting forward, they will more than double, from 1.6% to 3.7% of federal revenues. Wow. Meanwhile, slower growth will reduce other revenues by more that 2.5% even if we avoid a recession. Such BS.

Annualized real GDP growth in Q1 of 2025 was -0.3%, compared to an average of 2.5% over the last eight years. The rate in Q4 of 2024 was 2.4%, more or less average but a bit less than the 3.1% rate in Q3.

By itself, no big deal. Combined with other bad economic news, worrisome.

Sandoval signs on to letter objecting to Trump’s higher ed interference  • Nevada Current Former Nevada Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, who currently serves as president of the University of Nevada, Reno, is one of 435 university and college presidents and chancellors to sign on to a lette...

The AAC&U letter “refers to the essential role that our colleges and universities play in our society in educating students to sustain our democracy,” said the former Nevada Republican governor and current UNR president.

As the Sudetenland stayed with Germany.

Why U.S. Treasury Bonds count U.S Treasury Bonds are sold off during the stock market decline why that matters to U.S. consumers.

I had a TV interview today on Channel 8, discussing what bonds are, why they matter,and what happened last week regarding the tariffs. www.kolotv.com/2025/04/15/w....

Looks like the stock market.

It only makes sense if you are transactional in every relationship and judge trade relations as a score card with clear winners and losers. The opposite of what economics teaches.

Republicans Smoot and Hawley got their bill passed 95 years ago, and Hoover signed it even though more than 1000 economists said don’t. Average tariffs rose, imports fell, exports fell, and the Depression became Great. We trade more now and these tariffs are much bigger. It is insane.

We deleted our data and accounts. Thanks.

Full video: Hundreds attend town hall by former Congressional candidate Kidd Reno's independent, online news and events source. Established in 2009.

Hundreds of citizens on Wednesday came together for a town hall meeting to discuss federal government actions. Greg Kidd, who was unsuccessful in unseating Mark Amodei in Nevada’s second congressional district, criticized the Trump administration’s recent tariffs and budget cuts.

If the University of Pennsylvania wanted to get back at the Orange Felon for cutting federal funding, they could always accidentally release his transcripts. "Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had." -Professor William T. Kelley, Wharton School of Business and Finance, U Penn.

Can Today’s American people learn something from the Chinese Cultural Revolution? - SOAS China Institute Michel Bonnin argues that there are parallels between the Trump administration's overhaul of the US govt and Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

Trump and Mao and lessons from the Cultural Revolution. blogs.soas.ac.uk/china-instit....

Every time I see one of his trucks, I think "Swastikar."

I had a postcard from our visit to the D-Day beaches that I found a good use for.

Donate to Ukraine’s defenders The National Bank of Ukraine has decided to open a special fundraising account to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Am I right in thinking that this website is a legitimate way of saying that the Orange Sociopath does not represent me on Ukraine? war.ukraine.ua/donate/.

Going back to 1970 with BEA.gov data, it is easy to see that the only part of federal government spending that has really increased is social insurance benefits.Why? We live longer than we used to, we have more old people, and we have the most expensive healthcare in the world.

State and local governments get a large percentage of their budgets from federal government transfers. Here they are as a share of potential GDP compared to other revenue sources. If you cut federal grants, how likely is it that other taxes will rise to replace them?

Musk and the Orange Felon think taxes are too high. For perspective, here is a chart from BEA data showing annual federal receipts relative to potential GDP.

Unfortunately, we can't eradicate stupidity with a vaccine.

I think we should investigate who shorted the market and then bought back in today. Any insider information at work?

Carlo Cipolla, an Italian economist who used to teach economic history at Berkeley, wrote an amusing little essay called "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" in 1976. See harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic... . Obviously, it has relevance for today.

A graph showing that the Orange Narcissist won the election because blue voters stayed home. Here is the share of the voting-age population that voted blue and red in each state, in 2020 and 2024. The Trump share did not rise, but the Dem share fell. Apathy destroys democracy.

Import tariffs reduce imports but they also reduce exports. This image shows how tariffs correlate to the ratio of exports over imports. The correlation is -0.12, which is negative but not very significant. Higher tariffs reduce exports at least as much as they reduce imports. Maybe even more.