WASHINGTON (MaceNews) –-The following is Wednesday’s status check of developments in the U.S. that can influence economic, health and political outcomes:
- The day was full of campaign moves, some disguised as something else. For instance, President Trump’s memo to government agencies late in the day directed preparations be made to disown certain cities that he said are allowing anarchy to reign. Portland, Seattle, Washington D.C., New York., “Cities that recently have decided to pursue reckless policies that allow crime and lawlessness to multiply.” The list of errant cities, which Trump frequently identifies as being led by Democrats, will be posted on the Justice Department’s Web site and one more thing, would lose eligibility of “or otherwise disfavoring, to the maximum extent permitted by law, anarchist jurisdictions in the receipt of federal grants.” Blacklisting cities might not get the go-ahead from the Supreme Court where it is inevitably heading, but that will be a long time after the law and order declaration will have served its purpose.
- Attorney General William Barr, sitting on set at CNN for a rare evening interview, may have mused about the questions he could be asked had it been known he was being given authority to withhold federal funds from targeted cities. But that announcement would not come until after he was done defending the president’s more notable statements, like Trump’s description of black-garbed “thugs” traveling on planes to sites of future riots. Barr said he knows it’s happening. Jacob Blake’s seven bullet wounds, he said, can be blamed on the fact he was in the process of committing a felony while armed, a police killing to be distinguished from that of George Floyd.
- In the Joe Biden camp, an equally rare news conference after a speech telling Trump to stop tweeting and get busy negotiating some virus relief. Biden will make his own visit to Kenosha, for community meetings and an emphasis on reforming police, a visit with a different character from that of Trump, but a campaign event nevertheless. Both the Barr interview and the Biden speech and Q&A were documented minute by minute on the twitter account @macenewsmacro. The Biden campaign raised $345 million in August, a new high for any Democratic campaign, with the average contribution around $40.
- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in the spirit of negative reciprocity, China officials will be screened for entry from now on. A spokesman for China’s embassy said the restriction was unjustified.
- The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office updated its outlook, seeing as $3.3 trillion deficit this year, rising to record 107% of GDP in 2023. But for the decade as a whole, its deficit projection gets just a little bit smaller.. “At 16.0% of gross domestic product (GDP), the deficit in 2020 would be the largest since 1945.” The summary is at macenews.com.
- The morning’s ADP/Moody’s Analytics estimate of private payrolls for July was quite a bit less than expected, though a still large 428,000 addition to payrolls. Analyst Barry Ritholtz said the recovery is becoming, not a “V”, but a “K” indicating a bifurcation of the economy. Tech goes up, everything else goes down. Friday morning’s monthly jobs report is but one of several jobs indicators the Federal Reserve follows, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester told an NABE video presentation. Important things to know, like how many job losses are long-term, are hard to know. It will take years to retrain and otherwise restore a sizable part of the work force.
- New York Fed chief John Williams was another speech live-tweeted @macenewsmacro, in which he said, in response to a question, he is not particularly concerned about the effect of heavy government borrowing on the outlook for interest rates or as a constraint on the Fed’s independence. He repeated that fiscal support remained key to help businesses and families weather the pandemic. The story is at macenews.com.
- The Fed issued its Beige Book survey of economic conditions around the country, finding a mixed picture that placed New York, where activity has “stalled” at one end of the spectrum and Chicago, with a “strong” rebound, at the other end. The summary and district-by-district snapshots are at macenews.com.
- The New York Times reported the CDC is advising states to be ready to distribute an approved coronavirus vaccine as soon as sometime in October. The NYT virus tracker showed the latest day’s death tool slipped back above 1,000 after two days below 500. New confirmed cases, however, are down 13% from two weeks ago.
- U.S. stocks turned in a strong performance. The Nasdaq set still another record close, this time without the help of Tesla, down almost 6%, or Apple, down 2.1%, or Netflix, off 0.7%. The S&P likewise posted a new record. The DJIA topped 29,000 for the first time since February. In upcoming economic statistics, the Challenger report on layoffs at 7:30a ET, the weekly Labor Department count of new unemployment benefit claims at 8:30a along with the latest trade deficit, productivity revision and, at 9:45a the Markit PMI following by the ISM services index at 10a. Wednesday mornings report on factory orders in July rose 6.4%, more than expected. As Kevin Kastner wrote on @macenewsmacro, the report suggested solid demand, even outside of transportation.
—
Content may appear first or exclusively on the Mace News premium service. For real-time email delivery contact tony@macenews.com. Twitter headlines @macenewsmacro.