The Political Page, T+216 -- August 24, 2017

Jobs: new claims increased by 2,000, back up to 234,000 (below the consensus of 237,000). Initial claims held onto the bulk of the prior week's sizable 12,000 decline. The 4-week average is down for the 4th time in 5 weeks, 2,750 lower to 237,750 which is the lowest reading since May.

Trump "likes": because his tweets get thousands of "likes," a single "like" doesn't move the needle. But this morning, a first forme,

Fun to watch cognitive dissonance: watching Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC arguing against more government debt/increased deficit now that the GOP is in control. Under the Dems, he had no problem with government debt/increased deficit. For that matter, where is Nobel laureate Paul Krugman who consistently argued for increased spending under the Obama administration? Haven't heard from him in ages. A reader notes, see first comment:

George Orwell: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

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Scott Adams Again

Wow, wow, wow. Why I love to blog. A couple of days ago a reader sent me to one of the better blogs by Scott Adams. This post will direct you to the link to that story. Scott Adams talks about the "bubble of mass hysteria."

This morning on CNBC, one of the talking heads succumbed to that, and became part of the bubble of mass hysteria when she suggested that in the mid-terms the Dems could make a grand sweep, taking "every" contested race, putting both the US House and the US Senate back into the hands of Schumer and Pelosi. I always thought she was one of the brighter talking heads on CNBC but it's clear ...

But I digress. What I wanted to point out was another story over at CNBC suggesting why Trump's foibles may not be all that helpful for Democrats. It's the kind of story I generally prefer to ignore; preaching to the choir as it were. But a reader sent it to me so I knew there must be a nugget of gold in there somewhere, and indeed there was:

Don Luskin, the CIO of Trend Macrolytics, speculated that Americans succumbed last week to a "clinical case of mass hysteria." He suggested the consternation over Donald Trump's devouring 96 hours of news by issuing three distinct and occasionally contradictory pronouncements about the relative virtue of white supremacist marchers versus violent socialist counter protesters was a media fabrication. "His sin is that he has failed to express his outrage at the event in a particular way," Luskin wrote, "or, more precisely, that he has expressed it in a way that doesn't kowtow to the identity politics lobby."

And the story even quoted the Scott Adams blog which surprised me.

The general tone of the article suggests that this CNBC contributor has also fallen into the bubble of mass hysteria.

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The Gift That Keeps On Giving