ECONOMICS

The Washington Post's Taylor Lorenz (and some other guy) have penned an 'explainer' on why a TikTok video of a $16 McDonald's hamburger is misleading, inflation isn't that bad, and the viral clip is just some guy who ordered a 'novelty item' which ended up with him 'racking up hundreds of thousands of views.'

Lorenz (and sidekick), noting that it wasn't just a 'Big Mac meal,' smelled blood in the water.

The article then proffers this 'viral' hamburger incident as "one of many exaggerated examples of the nation’s economic woes."

An anonymous White House official then whispered in Lorenz' ear, after she wrote: "In reality, inflation has been steadily subsiding, and last week the government reported price hikes had eased yet again in October. The average Big Mac nationally as of this summer cost $5.58, up from $4.89 — or roughly 70 cents — before Biden took office, according to an index maintained by the Economist. That’s up more than 10 percent, but it’s not $16."

The WaPo piece aligns perfectly with a White House campaign to convince Americans things are better than ever, and Biden rocks, and he was only inspecting those children for lice.

Of course, regular readers know better than to believe the Biden administration and its media tentacles.

And when you exclude food and energy:

And what's this, buried towards the bottom of the WaPo report, they admit that disposable income has fallen like a rock.

So it's officially less shitty than the shittiest it's been under (more…)

For the 19th straight month, the Dallas Fed's manufacturing outlook survey was negative (indicating contraction), dropping to 4-month lows at -19.9 in November.

Source: Bloomberg

The new orders index has been negative for 18 months and dropped from -8.8 to -20.5 in November. The capacity utilization index returned to negative territory, falling from 5.4 to -10.1, while the shipments index slipped eight points to -9.5.

Texas factory activity contracted in November after two months of expansion, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey.

The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, fell 12 points to -7.2.

Source: Bloomberg

Expectations regarding future business conditions continued to worsen in November…

Source: Bloomberg

The one teeny tiny bright spot… prices paid (and received) dropped on the month.

Source: Bloomberg

Respondents were almost perfectly, uniformly downbeat…

• The chemical industry seems to be in a recession now (Chemical manufacturing)

• We are working our way (more…)

The fast food industry has become a behemoth in the U.S. from humble beginnings in Wichita a century ago, when the first White Castle store opened. Now, nearly 200,000 U.S. fast food brands make up an industry worth more than $300 billion.

Visual Capitalist's Pallavi Rao provides an overview of America’s fast food landscape, visualizing the top 15 companies with the most stores in the country. In this graphic, we use data from QSR Magazine, an industry magazine that focuses on (more…)