Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Two numbers for everyone writing the AI job apocalypse thread this week.
Jobless claims: 194,000, a hair above the lowest since 1969. Manufacturing PMI: 56.0, a 53-month high.
Hiring is slow, but firing barely shows up in the data. Not yet.
The real warning is the other line in this report: selling prices rising at the sharpest rate since August 2022. The economy isn't breaking. It's running hot.
That's a Fed problem, not a robot problem.
U.S. ECONOMY BOOMS, BUT INFLATION WARNING FLASHES RED
October's flash S&P Global PMI signals strong economic growth alongside accelerating inflation.
đž Composite PMI: 57.6 vs. 58.4 prior
đž Services PMI: 57.9 vs. 58.8
đž Manufacturing PMI: 56.0 â 53-month high
đž GDP growth: Consistent with roughly 5% annualized, according to S&P Global
Hiring remains strong, but selling prices are rising at their fastest pace since August 2022.
The key takeaway: U.S. growth remains exceptionally resilient, but renewed inflation pressures could complicate the Fed's rate outlook.
Source: S&P Global Flash U.S. PMI, October 23, 2026
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Replying to @business
The union behind the tax calls this the nail in the coffin of the "billionaires are fleeing" story. Look at what it took to keep this one: Meta created a whole new class of nonvoting stock so he could sell a slice of the company to pay Sacramento without losing his grip on it. That works when you control the board. The founder of a $2 billion startup gets the same 5% bill, and no board inventing a share class for him.
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Tomorrow, Paris closes the Louvre, the Orsay, the Orangerie, the Picasso museum and the Grand Palais. Not for a strike. Because the government fears a repeat of last Saturday's looting.
Art Basel Paris cut its weekend short. A night curfew already covers République and Les Halles.
A country that can't promise a quiet Saturday at the Louvre doesn't have a protest problem. It has an order problem, and a broken promise: decades of "we'll protect your purchasing power."
The Mona Lisa gets the day off. The bill doesn't.
The Louvre and several other major Paris museums will be closed on Saturday over concerns about potential violence during planned protests, Franceâs culture ministry said. abcnews.link/4TaIbEG
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Le préfet de police de Paris écrit aux commerçants : prenez des agents de sécurité privée, avec maßtres-chiens si besoin, fermez plus tÎt, ou n'ouvrez pas. Motif : le dispositif « ne peut garantir à lui seul la protection de chaque établissement ».
Traduisons. L'impĂŽt paie la police. Les vigiles, c'est pour le boulanger.
La sĂ©curitĂ© est la seule mission que l'Ătat ne peut pas dĂ©lĂ©guer. Il vient de la sous-traiter Ă ses contribuables, par courrier.
Le préfet parle de « maladresse ». Non. C'est un aveu.
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Every few months, the internet reopens the same fight: was Hitler left or right?
This time @elonmusk is boosting @brivael, who called everyone who disagreed "low IQ clowns" and then declared: "Topic closed. Next." Impressive. From AI genius to history professor in one viral video. Turns out engagement scores hand out PhDs now.
Wrong question anyway. Both camps want the label stuck on the other side, so they never have to look at what the regimes shared: a state that owns your work, your speech and your conscience.
I don't care which team tyranny wears. I care how much power one man gets over everyone else.
Replying to @elonmusk
By that logic, North Korea is a democracy. It's right there in the name. The Nazis sent communists and social democrats to Dachau first, smashed the unions and privatized firms. Hayek had the better point: left or right, collectivism ends in the same place. The line that matters isn't left vs. right. It's the individual vs. the all-powerful state.
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Samedi, à Lyon, toute manifestation est interdite. Ailleurs, les préfets ont pour consigne d'interdire celles « de nature à troubler l'ordre public ».
La mairie de Limoges a brûlé. Je ne vais pas faire comme si ce n'était rien.
Mais vu de New York, un dĂ©tail me frappe. Ici, les juges ont un nom pour l'idĂ©e d'interdire une manif Ă cause de ce que d'autres pourraient y faire : le « veto du chahuteur ». Et ils l'acceptent trĂšs mal. On arrĂȘte les casseurs. On ne confisque pas la rue Ă tout le monde.
En France, on prive d'avance ceux qui viennent marcher, parce que l'Ătat n'a pas su arrĂȘter ceux qui sont venus casser.
Le droit de manifester, sous réserve de la bonne conduite des autres. DrÎle de liberté.
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Best math lesson France got this week. Even Jacques Attali shared it.
Split every euro France produces among every adult, billionaires included, and you get about 2,600 euros a month to spend. That's the ceiling. There's no hidden treasure above it.
I'd add one line. The French already get roughly 1,200 more a month in kind, from schools, hospitals and courts. They just never see it on a pay slip.
So the fight over the slices can't be won. The only way out is a bigger pie. Factories, energy, housing. Everything France spent fifty years taxing.
La crise actuelle est en grande partie l'explosion d'une vieille contradiction qui a commencé avec les boomers et s'est accentuée avec les millenials et les gen Z : tout un chacun veut des conditions matérielles qui s'améliorent en continu, mais refuse ce qui rend cette amélioration possible, c'est-à -dire la croissance économique, la civilisation industrielle, le primat de la production, l'expansion démographique et l'exploitation des ressources naturelles.
Les boomers ont voulu une société tertiarisée de loisirs, ont fait peu d'enfants, ont favorisé la sécurité par les normes, la baisse du temps de travail. La contradiction est qu'ils ont aussi voulu de grosses retraites. (2 euros par euro cotisé). En conséquence de quoi, une seule solution : la prédation des richesses créées par les plus jeunes générations et l'endettement.
Mais ce ne sont pas les seuls, les millenials et les gen Z sont pris dans la mĂȘme contradiction. La croissance est sale, mais l'on ne veut pas vivre trĂšs sobrement. Pendant un moment ma gĂ©nĂ©ration a eu le fantasme de l'Ă©conomie expĂ©rientielle. Moins de biens, plus de souvenirs. Mais arrivĂ© Ă 40 ans, les weekends entre potes Ă Barcelone ne compensent plus vraiment le fait de pas pouvoir acheter d'appart.
Donc une seule solution : fantasmer qu'en prédatant les richesses des plus riches, ils pourraient dépasser leur contradiction, et s'enrichir sans faire grossir le gùteau.
Le problÚme est que les mathématiques ne marchent pas. En France comme grosso modo partout en Europe voici comment la richesse est dépensée :
- 52% en consommation des ménages.
- 26% en consommation publique et des associations (santé, éducation, défense, justice, administration, etc.)
- 22% en investissements (4,5 pour les ménages, principalement dans leur logement, 4,4% pour le public, 12% pour les entreprises qui achÚtent des machines et construisent des usines.)
Si on divise notre production annuelle de richesses par le nombre de Français de plus de 20 ans, ça fait un peu moins de 56 000 euros par personne.
Si nous répartissions parfaitement tous les revenus à tous les individus de plus de 20 ans, dans un communisme parfait, y compris l'argent des milliardaires, il y a donc (52%+4,5%)*56000 = 2637 euros par mois de disponible.
En tout et pour tout.
C'est ça le plafond. Il n'y a pas de magot caché au-delà de cette somme.
Donc quiconque a pour ambition dans la vie de gagner plus de 2637 euros doit se rendre compte que ça ne peut passer que par la croissance économique, ou l'appauvrissement de ses compatriotes.
Sans cette prise de conscience indispensable que le principal problĂšme de la France est simplement que le gĂąteau n'est pas assez gros pour satisfaire tout le monde, ce sera la continuation de la lutte de tous contre tous, et les violences actuelles ne feront que s'accentuer.
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
The WSJ asks if Marine Le Pen can save France. Wrong question. France doesn't lack saviors. It lacks someone willing to read the spending column out loud. This week the Assembly cut a tax and never got to the spending side. That's the French deal: the voter gets the cut, the bond market gets the bill. Who's collecting the toll?
Replying to @WSJ @WSJopinion
Sternberg is half right. This week Le Pen's party pushed through an amendment scrapping the C3S, a tax on company revenue. Cost: âŹ5.5bn, per the budget minister. Good tax to kill. But the spending half of the bill never got a vote, the revenue half died 115 to 1, and French 10-year debt briefly yielded more than Treasuries. Cutting a tax is the easy part. Naming what the state stops paying for is the revolution. Who's volunteering?
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
France has a real integration debate, and pretending otherwise helps no one.
But that's not this riot. On Oct 17, half a million people marched against the cost of living. The looting hit downtown Paris, Marseille and Lyon, and Limoges' 19th-century city hall burned in the heart of the city. Paris blames ultra-left groups and criminals. About 2,400 people were arrested, and nobody has published who they are yet. Neither has the Vice President.
Before you diagnose a country, read its arrest records.
Vice President JD Vance:
âI donât think you can talk about whatâs happening in France without acknowledging the role of migration. Because in the neighborhoods where you see the most significant violence, the most significant outbursts, the burning of these beautiful historical buildings, you often have neighborhoods with extremely high immigrant populations.â
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Replying to @barnsinthemoon @BFMTV
Juste, Montaigne n'Ă©tait pas sur le tracĂ© RĂ©publique-Clichy, j'aurais dĂ» Ă©crire « les commerçants » tout court. RĂ©publique et le boulevard Voltaire ont Ă©tĂ© pillĂ©s, puis des cortĂšges sauvages ont frappĂ© ailleurs. Ăa ne change pas le fond, ce sont des boutiques qui n'avaient rien demandĂ© qui ont payĂ©.
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Replying to @Jim_Jordan
Agreed. Neither does central planning with a Republican label: tariffs picking winners, Washington buying a stake in Intel, the White House setting prices. A principle that only applies to the other side isn't a principle.
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Replying to @WatcherGuru
The bigger story is in the same interview: Netanyahu says US military aid "won't keep coming, because America has changed." Crypto is the headline, but the real news is that dependence is ending. And a sanctions dodge on a public blockchain is an odd plan: it's the most traceable money ever invented. Four days before an election, it plays more like a slogan than a strategy.
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Replying to @RapidResponse47
The judge hasn't set a date yet; today's hearing does that. The 2029 timeline is the defense's ask, and Utah prosecutors themselves proposed January 2028. It's a death-penalty case: rush it into a month and you hand the defense an appeal. Justice for Charlie means a verdict that holds, not one that's fast.
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Replying to @SpeakerJohnson
Your own link says the opposite. One fake pollster, Wedgewood, got caught by independent researchers, and the candidates it hurt were Democrats in primaries. That's the system working, not proof that every poll is rigged. What should worry us more is an FCC chairman deciding which polls are "fake." Vote your values, sure. But Washington doesn't get to grade the numbers.
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Replying to @elonmusk
By that logic, North Korea is a democracy. It's right there in the name. The Nazis sent communists and social democrats to Dachau first, smashed the unions and privatized firms. Hayek had the better point: left or right, collectivism ends in the same place. The line that matters isn't left vs. right. It's the individual vs. the all-powerful state.
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Agreed, we landed on the same analogy. The honest nuance: from 1936 on, the Four-Year Plan put prices, wages and investment under the state's thumb. Private owners kept the deeds, Berlin gave the orders. That isn't Marxism. It's what Hayek warned about: once the state runs the economy, the label on the door stops mattering.
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Punir les pillards, oui. Vite et fort. Mais regardez l'outil choisi.
La privation des droits civiques existe déjà dans le Code pénal, et c'est un juge qui la prononce. Ce que la circulaire Darmanin ajoute, c'est une idée : celui qui pille se placerait « en dehors des rÚgles communes de citoyenneté ».
Sauf que la citoyenneté n'est pas une carte de fidélité. On punit un acte. On ne retire pas l'appartenance.
Prison, amende, réparation : tout ça est légitime. Le bulletin de vote n'est pas une récompense pour bonne conduite.
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Sur le principe, Washington a raison : un pays qui n'a jamais ratifié un traité n'en est pas le sujet. Sans consentement, il n'y a pas de souveraineté.
Mais le 9 octobre, on a dĂ©passĂ© le refus. Les Ătats-Unis ont placĂ© la Cour elle-mĂȘme sous sanctions, ses comptes et ses fournisseurs avec.
Et Washington a déjà applaudi la CPI quand elle visait Poutine, dont le pays n'est pas partie non plus.
La souveraineté est un principe ou un prétexte. Un principe, ça vaut aussi pour les autres.
La souverainetĂ© amĂ©ricaine nâest pas nĂ©gociable. Les Ătats-Unis nâont jamais adhĂ©rĂ© au Statut de Rome, traitĂ© fondateur de la Cour pĂ©nale internationale (CPI), et nous nâaccepterons pas ses tentatives dâĂ©tendre sa compĂ©tence aux citoyens amĂ©ricains.
Sous la direction du @POTUS, nous prenons des mesures décisives pour protéger nos citoyens et nos militaires contre les abus de pouvoir de la CPI.

ALT Le siĂšge de la Cour pĂ©nale internationale, avec une reprĂ©sentation de la balance de la justice entourĂ©e de branches de laurier, accompagnĂ©e du texte : « Position des Ătats-Unis sur la Cour pĂ©nale internationale. Ătat NON Partie. PAS dâobligations. Les Ătats-Unis nâont JAMAIS adhĂ©rĂ© au Statut de Rome. »
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Closer than most of this thread. Swap class for nation and race, keep the all-powerful state, and you get the Nazi formula. The labels change, the mechanism doesn't.
Meanwhile @brivael has gone from AI genius to self-taught historian, one engagement score at a time. "Topic closed. Next." is not how history works, my friend. The algorithm isn't a PhD committee.
Jeff Paroddy retweeted
Tariffs didn't become hated because of messaging. They became hated because people finally saw the bill. A tariff is a tax, paid at the register, and 64% now say he's gone too far, up from 58% in January. The Constitution gave that taxing power to Congress for a reason: taxes should have to win votes, not dodge them.








