Five Economic Factors

 1.  Using data from the end of April (2025).....the U.S. inflation rate, measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), is at 2.3-percent, down slightly from 2.4-percent in March 2025.

Driving factors?  Lower gasoline, grocery, and apparel prices have contributed to this disinflationary trend.

2.  Consumer confidence in the US had mixed signals in recent months, but showed a upswing in May 2025.  The Consumer Confidence Index rose to 98.0 in May 2025, up 12.3 points from 85.7 in April, surpassing expectations.  

Big deal after after five consecutive months of declines.

3.   The U.S. trade imbalance, hyped-up for the past decade.....had a change in terms of the trade deficit in goods and services (was $87.6 billion in April 2025...dropping from $140.5 billion in March 2025).  Data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the U.S. Census Bureau.

4.  In the past week....Trading Economics reported that egg prices had decreased 56-percent since the beginning of 2025.  Now?  Around $2.52 per dozen wholesale.

5. Mid-May gas pricing across the US?  The average dropped to $3.19 per gallon, an 11.5-percent decrease from $3.61 a year earlier.

Lot of positives, if you just look for them.  

The Clone Chatter

 Off Truth Social....President Trump did a 'reposting' from several years ago....saying there Joe Biden (as of 2020)  didn't exist, that he was replaced in some way by 'clones'.

So...the premise goes to this idea...around 2019, Joe seemed to age in a remarkable  way (both in physical and mental decline).   If you'd taken a scan of Joe in 2016/2017 and tried to compare to 2020's Joe....there's no match-up.

I tried to ponder upon this.

There's no doubt in my mind that around January of 2020....Joe was now running at three-quarters 'speed'.  You could ask a question, and get three minutes of BS....making no real connection to the original question.  It was almost like he was looped-up on some benzodiazepines, opioids or sleep inducing drugs such as Ambien.

There were 'good' days and 'bad' days....but by the middle of 2021....it was a 90-percent situation for 'bad' days.

If you'd given him a 6th-grade math quiz of ten questions and ten minutes....I'm not sure that he would have accomplished it, or  gotten a majority of the questions right.

So to the clone discussion?  I'm more likely to believe that with the new mask technology....a  'double' existed, and some weeks...upon returning from the Delaware beach  house....it was the 'double' in the White House.

BS?  Well....the past four years have been a wild-ride....with  various things that simply don't make sense.