We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
Sticky Supercore
When it comes to inflation, we know that the Bureau of Economic Analysis releases two inflation reports, the CPI and PCE, each month. The two differ because they each measure a distinct basket of goods (you can read about the technicals of each here).
These further break down into core (which omits volatile energy and food pricing) and headline inflation, which includes it. So we have headline CPI, core CPI, headline PCE, and core PCE. There are pros and cons to each, but the Fed states its inflation goal in terms of core inflation - specifically core PCE.
There are three (major) components to core PCE: core goods, housing, and core services ex-housing.
The last of which, core services ex-housing (also known as "Supercore" ), comprises 55% of the core PCE inflation index and, in the words of Powell himself, "may be the most important category for understanding the future evolution of core inflation. Because wages make up the largest cost in delivering these services, the labor market holds the key to understanding inflation in this category."
While today's core CPI may have come in as expected, core services ex housing rose for the fifth consecutive month. You cannot think seriously about rate cuts, which would likely rekindle economic activity and spur additional inflation, without consideration for Powell's metric of choice.
Yanis Varoufakis (former Greek Minister of Finance) describes AI as a new form of capital that produces not goods, but behavioral modification. This is achieved by engineering perceptions.
The answers provided by ChatGPT, or the images rendered by StableDiffusion — as these increasingly inform our perceptions, they in turn define the reality we experience.
This is what makes AI so powerful — he who controls the AI, defines the reality of tomorrow.
⚡️🇺🇸 Some more things coming out for the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Under the preliminary drafts of the bill, the USAF is requesting a release of $57,000,000 USD ($57.0 Million) to retire all remaining 162 A-10 Thunderbolt IIs in current service. Apart of the 2023 NDAA, there was a clause for a few million dollars to be released every so often to gradually retire the (then) 250 airframes by 2034; however due to the push by the Dept of Defense to ‘shed’ obsolete or obsolescent airframes that cannot be overhauled or upgraded further without a whole new airframe, it appears the USAF wants to retire all 162 remaining A-10s by the end of 2026.
The USAF plans to fully divest the 340-total remaining A-10s entirely, including those that currently serve in a handful of Air National Guard units in some states; which will be replaced by F-15EX Eagle IIs (like what is already happening with the Michigan State Air National Guard’s A-10s), or F-35A/Bs.
Included ...
My older sister lives in the country in between Velma Oklahoma and Duncan Oklahoma near the Fuqua Lake area, this story was told by a rural mail delivery woman who delivers the mail in the country.
The incident happened while she was on her route, when she came upon to the mailbox a male Chinese nation came out brandishing a, AK-47 rifle being very hostile,
I don't know if he pointed it at her since it is against the law to do so but she was terrified and said she was never going back and that the location that had a guard tower. Was the sheriff department notified, I don't know, did she notify her supervisor, don't know. But word is from the country folk who live in the area they have seen the guard tower at the pot place;
I refuse to call it a farm because it is an insult to farmers.
And yes she was traumatized by that ordeal
