Political Calculations
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Latest posts
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S&P 500 Falls as Investors Get Spooked by High Costs of AI
Compared to the previous week, the S&P 500 (Index: SPX ) didn't change much in the trading week ending on Friday, 30 October 2026. The index closed out the week at 7,580.07 , down a little under 0.6% from where it closed the preceding week. But that doesn't quite capture what…
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Outside the Box Thinking: Robot Snowblowers
In a world where self-driving cars and robot vacuum cleaners are a reality, it was only ever a matter of time before the next must-have gadget came onto the market. Or really just last winter, which we're mentioning today because, as you might already know, winter is coming.…
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The S&P 500's Thanksgiving Leftovers in October 2026
It's time to check in again for the second-to-last time with the ten worst performing stocks of the S&P 500 (Index: SPX ) in 2025. We've been tracking them since the day after Thanksgiving Day in 2025, after Seeking Alpha editor Jason Capul named them 2025's Thanksgiving…
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New Home Sales Steady to Slightly Lower with Builder Incentives
New home sales in the U.S. held relatively steady in September 2026 as builder incentives continued making buying a new home more affordable than buying an existing home for homebuyers. Political Calculations' initial estimate of the total value of new homes sold across the…
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Average Retail Prices of Gasoline and Diesel in the U.S
Today's fuel prices are once again elevated for consumers as the latest result of a series of shocks in the underlying price of oil that have taken place since the 1973 Oil Crisis . How does today's average price of a gallon of gasoline at the pump compare to those earlier…
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S&P 500 Dips as Investors Focus on Fed's Next Moves
The S&P 500 (Index: SPX ) closed out the trading week ending on Friday, 23 October 2026 a little under a half percent from its previous week's close. The index went into the weekend at 7,623.68 , which is 2.5% below its record high close of 7,818.93 back on 6 October 2026. What…
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The Curse of Billy Beane
The 2026 World Series for Major League Baseball gets underway today. The National League champion Milwaukee Brewers will host the American League champion Tampa Bay Rays in the first game of the best-of-seven series that will determine the ultimate champion of 2026 MLB season.…
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Hidden Taxes
Did you know that... if you rent, you're paying the property owner's income and property taxes? if you buy food, you're paying a farmer's income and property taxes? if you fly, you're paying the airline's income taxes, payroll taxes, and property taxes? And also the airline…
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September 2026 Snapshot of Who Owns the U.S. National Debt
The U.S. government's 2026 fiscal year came to an end on 30 September 2026. On that date, after tallying up the entire the national debt to the penny, the federal government's total public debt outstanding totaled $40,171,825,101,340.31. Compared to a year earlier, the national…
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Tomato Soup Prices Spike Upward as Campbell's Launches Turnaround Plan
Soup season has arrived! With fall now in full swing, complete with leaves changing color and cooler temperatures, Americans are increasingly turning to warmer foods as the warmth of summer fades. Foods like Campbell's Tomato Soup, which is second only to Campbell's Chicken…
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S&P 500 Falls as Investors Shift Forward-Looking Focus Back to 2026-Q4
The S&P 500 (Index: SPX ) fell 1.95% in the trading week ending on Friday, 16 October 2026. The index closed out the week at 7,659.44 , which is a little over 2% below its all-time record high from earlier in the month. The biggest market-moving events of the week came on…
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The Unreasonable Effectiveness of AI in Mathematics
On 6 October 2026, OpenAI casually announced it was "releasing a broad range of new mathematical results produced by an internal frontier model ", the same system the technology company used to produce its solution to the Navier-Stokes millennium challenge problem a month…
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The Outlook for S&P 500 Dividends in October 2026
The dividend outlook for the S&P 500 (Index: SPX ) took a turn toward lower dividend growth across all upcoming quarters for which dividend futures are available in our September 2026 snapshot of their outlook. Projected dividends for each quarter from the current fourth quarter…
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Pace of Global CO2 Emissions Continue Dropping
Evidence of the slowing momentum of China's domestic economy since December 2024 continued mounting in September 2026. It did so in the form of the continuing decline in the pace of carbon dioxide accumulation in the Earth's atmosphere. That pace has dropped to levels consistent…
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Trade Between U.S. and China Stabilizing at Reduced Levels
Trade between the U.S. and China continued showing signs of overall improvement. Trade data reported by the U.S. Census Bureau for August 2026 indicates a small month-over-month decline, but significant year-over-year gains. The combined value of all goods exchanged between the…
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S&P 500 Rises as Bulls Load Up on Big Cap AI Stocks
The S&P 500 (Index: SPX ) hit a new record high of 7,818.54 on Tuesday, 6 October 2026. The index then proceeded to bounce around a little below that level before wrapping up the trading week at 7,811.54 , less than 0.1% below its new record high close. Overall, it was a good…
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Thinking Inside the Box: The Overengineered Compass
What happens when you apply outside-the-box thinking to an inside-the-box challenge? The inside-the-box challenge, in this case, is the magnetic compass. Once a vital tool for navigation in the days before satellites and the Global Positioning System , the magnetic compass of…
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Fall 2026 Snapshot of the S&P 500's Market Cap
The market capitalization of the S&P 500 (Index: SPX ) increased during the third quarter of 2026, rising 1.9% above where it finished in the second quarter. The S&P 500's 503 stocks, covering all 500 firms that compose the index, collectively grew by a little over $1.26…
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Climbing Limo GDP Forecast for 2026-Q3
The climbing limo method of forecasting future GDP in the United States projects the nation's economic output in the now-finished third quarter of 2025 will be around $32.7 trillion. That estimate was generated using one of the simplest of forecasting methods. We pulled the…
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Teen Jobs Surge After Seasonal Adjustments
It's an odd time of year with the seasonal adjustments for teen jobs. The raw data says the number of working teens between the ages of 16 and 19 declined month-over-month in September 2026. But after seasonal adjustments, the number of U.S. teens counted as being employed rose…