Aviva Stahl New legislation could accelerate a growing movement of tenants who refuse to be at the mercy of developers and want to take ownership of their communities’ resources. The post Community Land Trusts Are Standing Up to New York City’s Worst Landlords appeared first on The Nation.
Nepal’s Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli resigned immediately after massive youth protests swept the nation and led to deadly clashes with police that left over 20 dead. Anger over government corruption has been rising. Youth unemployment surpassed 20% and people aged 15 to 40 compose 43% of Nepal’s population. The final straw was a nationwide ban on social media imposed on September 4, 2025. The youth took to the streets to demand immediate change. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/NepalFinanceMinisterBeaten.mp4 Nepal’s Finance Minister, Bishnu Paudel, was chased through the streets by an angry mob. Paudel was beaten, stripped naked, and paraded through the streets in his underwear. RT posted the above video shortly after the incident, although it is unverified whether or not the man in the video is Paudel. PM Oli’s residence in Bhaktapur was set on fire, as was the residence of President Ram Chandra Paudel. Spectators say that the youth were continuously throwing petrol bombs at the residences as they burned to the ground. Politicians are becoming increasingly concerned over the growing discontent sweeping the world as the cost of living continues to soar. When we examine what has occurred in Nepal, it is not an isolated, random event. Governments are collapsing worldwide due to economic instability. My models have been showing that confidence in governments is collapsing everywhere, from Europe to South America, and Nepal is simply another example of this global trend. Undeterred by police tear gas, rioters breached Nepal’s Parliament building and burned it to the ground. Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport came to a standstill. The destruction lasted for two days until Oli accepted defeat and allegedly fled the country. Over 90 people have been hospitalized for wounds related to clashes with the police who were far outnumbered by persons and sheer rage. Nepal has always been a buffer state caught between India and China. Every time we see economic decline, corruption, or outside meddling, the population eventually turns against the political class. The overthrow of the Nepalese government is simply part of this larger cycle of anti-establishment movements that will continue to spread. Governments fall when the people no longer believe in their competence to govern. It does not matter if the system is a monarchy, a democracy, or a dictatorship—the cycle remains the same. We are heading into 2032, the culmination of the Economic Confidence Model, which marks a period of rising civil unrest, political fragmentation, and the overthrow of governments globally. Nepal may seem small on the geopolitical map, but its fall is part of the domino effect. From Pakistan to Sri Lanka, from Latin America to Europe, the same pattern is unfolding. The loss of faith in government as an institution has become a worldwide phenomenon and the people are beginning to direct their anger at government rather than against one another.
Leer en Español Global economy to lose steam this year: The FocusEconomics World GDP Consensus Forecast—based on 3,500 individual projections for GDP growth across 198 countries—shows that the global economy is on track for its slowest growth since the Covid-19 slump of 2020 this year, dragged down by softer expansions in major players like Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, Russia and the U.S. But the picture isn’t bleak everywhere—Africa and the Middle East are set to accelerate, powered by rising OPEC+ oil output quotas that are giving regional GDP a welcome boost. Forecasts display U-shaped trend: As the graph below shows, our World GDP Consensus Forecast was slashed in the wake of Donald Trump’s announcement of reciprocal tariffs, but has since recovered somewhat. Economic activity in many parts of the world has proved more resilient than expected, higher tariffs in the U.S. are taking a while to filter through to prices, and the global AI boom is girding tech exports and investment. G20 countries see divergent trend: The below graph shows the evolution of our 2025 GDP growth forecasts for select G20 countries over the last six months. Argentina has seen the largest upgrade, as the government’s aggressive reform agenda has borne fruit. China’s forecasts have also been upgraded—superficially surprising, given the country has been subjected to hefty new U.S. tariffs. Chinese economic activity has been boosted by record government bond issuance, strong global electronics demand, rapid electric-vehicle-sector growth, export frontloading and rerouting to avoid U.S. tariffs, and an expanded trade-in scheme that boosted household spending. At the other end of the spectrum are the economies of South Korea and Mexico, both of which are likely to suffer fallout from a more protectionist U.S. Insight from our panelists: On the outlook for the global economy, EIU analysts said: US trade protectionism is being met mostly with restraint in terms of retaliation, but deep policy uncertainty is moving the global economy into a worse equilibrium. The risk of policy missteps will be high in this environment of rapid change. Although we forecast that global short-term interest rates will continue to fall, the unpredictable application of US tariffs will make it difficult for central banks to decipher inflation trends. Under the second Trump administration, the US is working to rebalance its economic and security relations. The manner in which the agenda is being pursued, however, will strain traditional alliances and drive geopolitical and economic realignment. Conflict risk and geopolitical brinkmanship will be key features of the global landscape, contributing to high risk premia and sustaining the risk of commodity price shocks. On U.S. trade policy, ING’s Carsten Brzeski said: “Trump is demanding that trading partners show him the money in the form of investment pledges or face astronomically high tariffs. […] It’s unclear whether investment aspects of trade talks will move beyond headline figures and vague commitments. Unlike tariffs, which are straightforward to enforce, investment pledges and purchase commitments are harder to monitor, especially since entities like the EU lack the authority to guarantee them, leaving delivery to corporations. Japan and South Korea’s promises are mainly in the form of loans. This raises questions about how the U.S. might respond if countries fall short. And even with a deal – and I’m looking at you, Switzerland – the tariff issue persists. For Trump, tariffs are a versatile tool, used well beyond trade balance concerns. We can only guess at the long-term implications of such economic power play. Disrupted supply chains, strained diplomatic ties, economic selfishness, and less efficient global trade are just a few things to come to mind.” Our latest analysis: Israel’s economy clocked a surprise contraction in Q2. Japan’s exports worsened again in July. The post Get the latest global GDP growth forecasts via our daily tracker appeared first on FocusEconomics.
ASIA: The major Asian stock markets had a mixed day today: • NIKKEI 225 decreased 184.52 points or -0.42% to 43,459.29 • Shanghai decreased 19.548 points or -0.51% to 3,807.292 • Hang Seng increased 304.22 points or 1.19% to 25,938.13 • ASX 200 decreased 46.10 points or -0.52% to 8,803.50 • SENSEX increased 314.02 points or 0.39% to 81,101.32 • Nifty50 increased 95.45 points or 0.39% to 24,868.60 The major Asian currency markets had a mixed day today: • AUDUSD decreased 0.0009 or -0.14% to 0.65888 • NZDUSD decreased 0.00165 or -0.28% to 0.59282 • USDJPY decreased 0.038 or -0.03% to 147.335 • USDCNY increased 0.00003 or 0.00% to 7.12233 The above data was collected around 13:13 EST. Precious Metals: • Gold increased 8.48 USD/t oz. or 0.23% to 3,644.18 • Silver decreased 0.477 USD/t. oz. or -1.16% to 40.862 The above data was collected around 13:16 EST. EUROPE/EMEA: The major Europe stock markets had a mixed day today: • CAC 40 increased 14.55 points or 0.19% to 7,749.39 • FTSE 100 increased 21.09 points or 0.23% to 9,242.53 • DAX 30 decreased 88.68 points or -0.37% to 23,718.45 The major Europe currency markets had a mixed day today: • EURUSD decreased 0.00486 or -0.41% to 1.17197 • GBPUSD decreased 0.00167 or -0.12% to 1.35357 • USDCHF increased 0.00418 or 0.53% to 0.79700 The above data was collected around 13:25 EST. US/AMERICAS: US Market Closings: Dow advanced by 196.39 points (+0.43%) to 45,711.34 S&P 500 advanced by 17.46 points (+0.27%) to 6,512.61 NASDAQ advanced by 80.79 points (+0.37%) to 21,879.49 Russell 2000 declined by 13.07 points (-0.55%) to 2,381.82 Canada Market Closings: TSX Composite advanced by 35.28 points (+0.12%) to 29,063.01 TSX 60 advanced by 2.07 points (+0.12%) to 1,720.48 Brazil Market Closing: Bovespa declined by 173.29 points (-0.12%) to 141,618.29 ENERGY: The oil markets had a mixed day today: • Crude Oil increased 0.672 USD/BBL or 1.08% to 62.932 • Brent increased 0.644 USD/BBL or 0.98% to 66.664 • Natural gas decreased 0.0106 USD/MMBtu or -0.34% to 3.0794 • Gasoline increased 0.0367 USD/GAL or 1.87% to 1.9971 • Heating oil increased 0.0175 USD/GAL or 0.76% to 2.3294 The above data was collected around 13:28 EST. • Top commodity gainers: Gasoline (1.87%), Orange Juice (5.15%), Sugar (1.31%) and Cocoa (1.75%) • Top commodity losers: Feeder Cattle (-2.61%), Live Cattle (-2.42%), Platinum (-1.42%) and Coffee (-1.71%) The above data was collected around 13:34 EST. BONDS: Japan 1.5650% (-0.3bp), US 2’s 3.54% (+0.045%), US 10’s 4.0720% (+2.9bps); US 30’s 4.71 (+0.020%), Bunds 2.6549% (+1.62bp), France 3.4680% (-0.5bp), Italy 3.505% (+0.67bp), Turkey 32.86% (+220bp), Greece 3.352% (+1.9bp), Portugal 3.079% (+1.2bp); Spain 3.239% (+0.8bp) and UK Gilts 4.6250% (+1.63bp) The above data was collected around 13:40 EST.
Tej Parikh in FT inquires. He presents growth rates of key indicators followed by the NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee (BCDC). Below I show the same indicators in levels (where I’ve replaced the official NFP series with the implied preliminary benchmark NFP using Wells Fargo estimates). Figure 1: Nonfarm Payroll – estimated preliminary benchmark revision (bold blue), NFP official (thin blue), civilian employment with smoothed population controls (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding current transfers in Ch.2017$ (bold light green), manufacturing and trade industry sales in Ch.2017$ (black), and monthly GDP in Ch.2017$ (pink), all log normalized to 2025M04=0. Estimated preliminary benchmark is based on midpoint of Wells Fargo range of downward revision. Source: BLS via FRED, Federal Reserve, BEA 2025Q2 second release, S&P Global Market Insights (nee Macroeconomic Advisers, IHS Markit) (9/2/2025 release), and author’s calculations. I normalize on April 2025 because that’s the peak in civilian employment, and there’s some evidence that civilian employment peaks before NFP in real time, just before recessions. It’s clear that nonfarm payroll employment growth has slowed to a crawl, a slowdown more pronounced if one used the official series. We have the official preliminary benchmark revision on Tuesday (9/9), and the Philadelphia Fed early benchmark on 9/19. The evolution of civilian employment is shown below. Figure 2: Civilian employment, smoothed population controls experimental series (orange), and 3 month centered moving average (dark orange), in 000’s, s.a. Source: BLS and author’s calculations. Since the household survey based employment series is more volatile than the NFP, it makes sense to take a moving average. This transformation confirms that civilian employment is past recent peak…
Katrina vanden Heuvel Trump is repaying rural voters’ loyalty by shafting them. The post What Was the Cracker Barrel Skirmish Really About? (Hint: Distracting from Real Crises Facing the Heartland.) appeared first on The Nation.
Be afraid, be very afraid. From the WSJ article: Five weeks after President Trump fired the chief of the agency that gathers the country’s labor and price data, his advisers are preparing a report laying out alleged shortcomings of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs data, according to people familiar with the matter. The report takes a critical look at the BLS and lays out a historical overview of the agency’s jobs-data revisions, they said. The administration is considering publishing the study, written by the Council of Economic Advisers, in the coming weeks, according to these people. If this forthcoming report is anything like its analysis of the OBBB (critique here), I suggest running for the hills. As an aside, if we were to use a CENSUS (and willing to wait eight months for the numbers), then one would find that 0.8% y/y growth rate through December 2024, vs. 1.3% in the CES series. Using the CPS based series adjusted to the NFP concept (which was pushed by Republicans angered by the slow employment growth recorded after the 2001 recession), the growth rate was 0.9%. In other words, precise measurement of COVERED employment leads to lower estimated employment growth. By the way, NABE is alarmed as well: The National Association for Business Economics (NABE) – the global professional association of 3,000 business economists, applied economists, and data scientists – stands firmly with the dedicated economists and statisticians at BLS and across the federal statistical agencies. BLS staff are singularly focused on accuracy and quality, even in the face of funding cuts, falling survey response rates, and changes in the structure of the economy.
Teaching statistics next semester, adding in this section, which I am tempted to name the “EJ Antoni Memorial Module”. Before credible statistical analysis can proceed, one has to be sure that (1) one knows definitions, (2) one knows the attributes of the data, (3) one knows the relative reliability of alternative measures of the same variable. In conducting basic statistical analysis, it is useful to (1) report diagnostics, (2) remember what units the variables are measured in, (3) what understand how a particular procedure works. Here are some egregious examples of failures to heed these suggestions, either by error or by intent. Know your definitions. If you’re going to write a paper on recessions, you should know what the technical definition is (it’s not 2 consecutive quarters of negative growth). Understand your variable, and what it includes (import deflators), then look it up! The BLS import deflator doesn’t include tariffs. Don’t use a series that is noisier than the other. For instance, don’t use CPS based government employees count instead of CES based government jobs count, if you want a more precise measure. Report regression statistics if you’re going to cite regression results. A dissertation without a single reported R-squared or F-test or DW statistic is eyebrow-raising. Know what units your variables are measured in, including when running regressions. For instance, if the dependent variable is an interest rate measured in percentage points. and the independent variable is an interest rate measured in decimal form, then the coefficient, even if “small” at 0.04, actually quite large when expressed in percentage point for percentage point terms.
From The Regulatory Review, Clifford Winston: The Trump Administration’s hiring of academics who compromise disciplinary standards threatens effective governance. The impending appointments by President Donald J. Trump of a new chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics threaten government performance by academic toadyism. In the interest of being close to power, either by taking a formal position in government or by advocating on behalf of an administration, academic toadies eschew the process of carefully applying the findings of precisely formulated and tested hypotheses to recommend policies that improve people’s lives. Instead, they provide unfailing support for the President’s policies even if they are harmful. Many academics aligned with both political parties have distinguished their discipline by serving in government and providing policymakers with valuable advice. The potential harm to the public caused by academic toadies, however, has recently grown because President Trump hires only people who agree with him unconditionally and will fire anyone who he discovers disagrees with him. Thus, it is possible that President Trump’s choice of Federal Reserve chair will act on the President’s uninformed and impulsive views of the U.S. and global economy without questioning their veracity. E.J. Antoni, who holds a PhD from Northern Illinois University, is currently the chief economist at The Heritage Foundation and has just been nominated by President Trump to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Antoni’s unsubstantiated criticism of the Bureau as needing to “rebuild the trust that has been lost over the last several years” confirms that he checks the right boxes. Academic departments must alert their students to this potential problem and encourage them not to become academic toadies. I am not advocating that academics who work for the Trump Administration should be automatically cancelled. I am advocating that academic departments urge their students who eventually engage with government policymakers to understand that they have a responsibility to maintain the scientific values and standards of their academic discipline. Because law is intertwined with public policy, the nation’s law schools are a natural home from which academics go into or serve as advocates for a presidential administration. Consider toadyism by Alan Dershowitz, an emeritus professor at Harvard Law School. Dershowitz was an advocate for President Trump at his impeachment trial where the President was charged by the U.S. House of Representatives for abuse of power based on offering inappropriate quid pro quos to a foreign nation to improve his re-election chances. Dershowitz justified President Trump’s behavior because President Trump believed that his re-election was in the public interest; thus, because President Trump did something that he believed would help him get elected in the public interest, the quid pro quo was not an impeachable offense. Dershowitz assumes that the public has revealed a preference to re-elect President Trump, and he then works backward to conclude that President Trump’s behavior must have been in the public interest. As an academic, Dershowitz knows that he should state and justify this and all of his assumptions explicitly. If Dershowitz did so, it would be clear that this assumption was false because preferences, especially those by the public in the voting booth, only are revealed ex-post, and not necessarily known ex-ante. Indeed, as an empirical matter, Dershowitz’s assumption was false because the public rejected Trump’s reelection in 2020. Dershowitz might respond that he was defending a client in the interest of defending the U.S. Constitution. However, he was not paid for his representation and could not claim that he had a lawyer’s ethical obligation to advance the best argument for his paying client, unimpaired by academic considerations. Thus, he should not have ignored academic considerations and made a more credible scholarly argument. Dershowitz, however, was paid for his role in representing some of his clients who were seeking a grant of clemency from President Trump. Following her support for overturning Roe v. Wade, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a former professor at Notre Dame Law School, said at an event at the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center that her goal was to convince the audience that the court is not “comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks.” Justice Barrett was unconvincing because she avoided a legal academic’s responsibility to come to terms with the powerful indictment by Richard Posner, a prominent former appellate judge, that because justices do not share a commitment to a logical premise for making decisions—for example, cost–benefit analysis—they must be ideological because they cannot be anything else. In addition, she ignored the scholarly empirical evidence showing that justices have repeatedly made ideologically based rulings that reflect significant polarity within the court. Justice Barrett’s defense against toadyism is that she adheres to an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, which again is unconvincing because there is no original constitutional meaning to discover in many cases. Using an originalist approach in other cases would lead to abhorrent results, such as not providing constitutional protection against race-based and sexual discrimination. Of course, Justice Barrett is now a judge—no longer an academic—and was an originalist as an academic. In other words, she is now parlaying her weak academic arguments to often support President Trump in vital matters before the Court. She has become an academic toady because she has little commitment to distinguishing the legal profession’s excellence. Academic economists who have previously served on the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) have identified helping to weed out atrocious policies proffered by an administration as one of their most important and most successful responsibilities. Implementing a set of tariffs on goods from countries across the globe is one of those atrocious policies that serious academic economists do not support. Any economist who attempts to do so would find it difficult to draw on sound theoretical and empirical arguments to justify their support. President Trump, however, has succeeded in attracting academic toadies who are willing to support his global tariff policy despite its weak theoretical and empirical justification. Peter Navarro, a former professor of economics and public policy at the University of California, Irvine, who has served in trade-related positions in both Trump Administrations, has zealously supported President Trump’s tariffs, going as far as saying that tariffs are tax cuts when the consensus among economists is that tariffs
Leer en Español Global economy to lose steam this year: The FocusEconomics World GDP Consensus Forecast—based on 3,500 individual projections for GDP growth across 198 countries—shows that the global economy is on track for its slowest growth since the Covid-19 slump of 2020 this year, dragged down by softer expansions in major players like Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, Russia and the U.S. But the picture isn’t bleak everywhere—Africa and the Middle East are set to accelerate, powered by rising OPEC+ oil output quotas that are giving regional GDP a welcome boost. Forecasts display U-shaped trend: As the graph below shows, our World GDP Consensus Forecast was slashed in the wake of Donald Trump’s announcement of reciprocal tariffs, but has since recovered somewhat. Economic activity in many parts of the world has proved more resilient than expected, higher tariffs in the U.S. are taking a while to filter through to prices, and the global AI boom is girding tech exports and investment. G20 countries see divergent trend: The below graph shows the evolution of our 2025 GDP growth forecasts for select G20 countries over the last six months. Argentina has seen the largest upgrade, as the government’s aggressive reform agenda has borne fruit. China’s forecasts have also been upgraded—superficially surprising, given the country has been subjected to hefty new U.S. tariffs. Chinese economic activity has been boosted by record government bond issuance, strong global electronics demand, rapid electric-vehicle-sector growth, export frontloading and rerouting to avoid U.S. tariffs, and an expanded trade-in scheme that boosted household spending. At the other end of the spectrum are the economies of South Korea and Mexico, both of which are likely to suffer fallout from a more protectionist U.S. Insight from our panelists: On the outlook for the global economy, EIU analysts said: US trade protectionism is being met mostly with restraint in terms of retaliation, but deep policy uncertainty is moving the global economy into a worse equilibrium. The risk of policy missteps will be high in this environment of rapid change. Although we forecast that global short-term interest rates will continue to fall, the unpredictable application of US tariffs will make it difficult for central banks to decipher inflation trends. Under the second Trump administration, the US is working to rebalance its economic and security relations. The manner in which the agenda is being pursued, however, will strain traditional alliances and drive geopolitical and economic realignment. Conflict risk and geopolitical brinkmanship will be key features of the global landscape, contributing to high risk premia and sustaining the risk of commodity price shocks. On U.S. trade policy, ING’s Carsten Brzeski said: “Trump is demanding that trading partners show him the money in the form of investment pledges or face astronomically high tariffs. […] It’s unclear whether investment aspects of trade talks will move beyond headline figures and vague commitments. Unlike tariffs, which are straightforward to enforce, investment pledges and purchase commitments are harder to monitor, especially since entities like the EU lack the authority to guarantee them, leaving delivery to corporations. Japan and South Korea’s promises are mainly in the form of loans. This raises questions about how the U.S. might respond if countries fall short. And even with a deal – and I’m looking at you, Switzerland – the tariff issue persists. For Trump, tariffs are a versatile tool, used well beyond trade balance concerns. We can only guess at the long-term implications of such economic power play. Disrupted supply chains, strained diplomatic ties, economic selfishness, and less efficient global trade are just a few things to come to mind.” Our latest analysis: Israel’s economy clocked a surprise contraction in Q2. Japan’s exports worsened again in July. The post Get the latest global GDP growth forecasts via our daily tracker appeared first on FocusEconomics.
