You know that moment in a horror movie when the lights suddenly go out right at the worst moment? Maybe they’ll come back on without issue. Maybe it’ll be a massive jump scare. Either way, you’re holding your breath, squeezing the armrests, wondering why you’re watching a scary movie in the first place.
That’s how this government shutdown feels, at least from an economic data standpoint.
That said, we did get one critically important government data release this week: today’s consumer price index data. Enjoy it. It might be the last one we see for a while.
Monday
TSA Checkpoint Travel Numbers
The number of people flying glided smoothly back to Earth this past week, but, like we said last week, I’m still not sure I trust the TSA data. Sure, it’s possible there was a huge increase in flying from October 9-13, but given that the website says TSA won’t maintain the data during the shutdown, I’m skeptical.
Oil Stuff
Not much to see on the data side: no change in the number of active U.S. oil rigs and both gas and diesel prices fell for the week.
That said, very much to see on the news side: President Trump put sanctions on Russian oil on Wednesday, and that could (maybe already has?) lead to China and India buying less oil from Russia. As a result, crude oil prices jumped about $5/barrel (though they’re still pretty low).
Tuesday
Florida Takes Aim at Property Taxes
Efforts in Florida to slash property taxes—or fully eliminate them, if the Governor gets his way—seem doomed to fail. That’s a good thing, because on a scale of one to really-bad-idea, totally eliminating property taxes (or even just exempting seniors) is a really bad idea.
As far as taxes go, there’s a strong consensus among economists that taxes on real property are the least bad. Why is that? In terms of incentives, property taxes facilitate the transfer of land to the most efficient uses. Less abstractly, property taxes account for 40%+ of general revenues in the few large Florida counties I checked, and schools don’t fund themselves.
Wednesday
Cattlemen Have Beef with President
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