Economy

Newsweek -   Economists and Democrat lawmakers have slammed President Donald Trump for firing the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after they published a weaker-than-expected jobs report for July. Trump accused director Erika McEntarfer, without evidence, of manipulating the reports for political reasons and announced on Truth Social that he had directed his team to fire her "immediately."

Economist Ernie Tedeschi added on X that he'd worked with McEntarfer directly and knew "no economist who is more data-focused & devoted to truth in statistics." 

Adriana Kugler is unexpectedly stepping down from the Federal Reserve’s powerful board of governors, creating an early vacancy that will give President Trump an early opportunity to shape the Fed’s leadership. 

Hartmann Report -   Republicans may be fixing to crash the economy again — Republican presidents oversaw 10 of the last 11 recessions and the Republican Great Depression — and they’re doing it to satisfy the greed of the billionaires they serve.

Today, for example, is the day that some of Trump‘s worst tariffs are supposed to go into effect, and many folks on Wall Street are deciding where they want to hide when the ceiling starts falling in. The horrible jobs report just released hours ago highlights not only how bad things were in July, but they had to “revise downward by 285,000 jobs” previous reports; it looks like Trump’s people have been cooking the books.

The Financial Times is on it; they published an article this week titled, “The US economy is more fragile than it appears.” It’s author, Tej Parikh, points out that our housing market is in trouble and starting to look like it did around the time of the Bush Housing Crash in 2008, that spending patterns are changing in alarming ways (my phrase, not his), and that both the labor and stock markets are vulnerable. The article is frankly alarming.

And former labor secretary Robert Reich titled his brilliant newsletter yesterday: “Be Warned: The Financial Bubble Will Soon Burst.” The former Clinton cabinet member writes:  “The financial economy — stocks, bonds, and their derivatives — is in for a big reality check, and I think it will happen soon.”

America has stared into this abyss before; three times, in fact. In the 1770s, a brutal financial crisis driven by colonial overextension, monopolistic control by the British East India Company, and political corruption helped spark the American Revolution. In the 1850s, it was wildcat banking, land speculation, and a collapse in trust that helped produce the Panic of 1857 and push the nation toward civil war. And in 1929, Republican deregulation, tax cuts for the rich, financial speculation, and an all-out assault on labor exploded into the Republican Great Depression.

Today, every one of the fuse lines that set off those explosions is once again being laid by a Republican president and Party that has abandoned any pretense of economic stewardship or patriotism.

Nation -  When Donald Trump campaigned on making America great again, not many of us realized he was talking about the 1970s. That was a decade of unprecedented inflation and a sharp slowdown in growth after a quarter-century boom following World War II.

We’re just two quarters into the Trump administration, but the picture we have seen to date is not good. In the first quarter of this year the economy actually shrank at a 0.5 percent annual rate. A decline in GDP is unusual, but many of us downplayed the drop since there were unusual quirks in the data responsible for the decline.

Specifically, there was a massive surge in imports as businesses and households rushed to buy things in anticipation of Trump’s tariffs. Imports were a major drag on growth in the quarter. But we saw the reversal in the second quarter, with imports falling back to a more normal level. That was by far the most important factor behind the 3 percent growth reported for the second quarter.

While the Trump administration touted the big comeback from a 0.5 percent first-quarter decline to growth of 3 percent, those not on the administration’s payroll pointed out that it is necessary to talk the two quarters together. And that picture is not pretty.

Growth in the first half of 2025 averaged 1.2 percent. That’s down from a 2.8 percent growth rate in Biden’s last year. When Trump talks of turning the economy around he speaks the truth, he just gets the direction of change wrong.

Looking at the economy by category doesn’t improve the story. Consumption, which accounts for almost 70 percent of the economy, grew at just a 0.9 percent annual rate in the first half, down from 3.4 percent in 2024.

The Guardian -  The US economy added 73,000 jobs in July, far lower than expected, amid ongoing concerns with Donald Trump’s escalating trade war.  Forecasters surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted the July jobs report would show a drop in added jobs to around 109,000. The unemployment rate rose to 4.2% from 4.1% in June.

The Bureau of Labor also slashed the number of jobs added in recent months. May’s jobs figure was revised down by 125,000, from 144,000 to 19,000, and June was revised down by 133,000, from 147,000 to 14,000 – a combined 258,000 fewer jobs than previously reported.