1) Who's Mining the Mint?

Not Fed chief Jerome Powell. You'd think the people in charge of the money supply and managing the economy would be judicious in their spending habits, and watch their Ps and Qs.

It turns out the $2.5 billion for the renovation of the Fed's palatial headquarters in Washington is only the continuation of a pattern of wild spending.  This chart shows that the Federal Reserve budget has almost quadrupled since 2000. Overall prices are up 50% versus 300% for the Fed's operating costs.  

Someone ought to remind Chairman Powell of the maxim that "charity begins at home."

2) Real Wages Are Finally Rising Again

The Left lost the presidency and the Congress because wages fell below inflation for half of all workers.  

The Bureau of Labor Statistics just released the latest data on median weekly earnings, showing that real weekly earnings are finally back to where they were during the last full quarter of Trump's first term.  

Fortunately, inflation has slowed this year while earnings growth has not. With the passage of the Trump tax bill and other pro-growth measures, we're expecting that real earnings will continue to rise.

If Kamala had won instead of Trump, the four "lost years" of Biden could've easily turned into a "lost decade" like the 1970s.

For real wages to rise, productivity has to increase.  And that requires capital spending (CapEx) on equipment, machinery, and technologies that enable workers to produce more and get paid more.

As Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent points out, the Big Beauty's tax provisions - including 100% capital expensing retroactive to January 19 - along with the Trump deregulatory agenda have unleashed a boom in capital expenditures:

4) We've Seen the Future...and It's in the South

Next week we at UP will be releasing our Vote With Your Feet website that will be the preeminent tracker of where Americans are going with their money, and the places they are leaving in the dust.  

This chart shows the slow burn and continuous decline of the Northeast, and the increasing industrial muscle-flexing of the South.  

Just think of how many more New Yorkers will start fleeing the city and state if socialist Zohran Mamdani is elected mayor.

5) Will Minneapolis Democrats Elect Their Own Mamdani For Mayor?

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has a spotty record at best, but at least he eventually repelled the “defund the police” mob that took to the streets in violent protests after George Floyd's murder.  

But the radicals in the party exacted their revenge last weekend when the Democratic convention endorsed a socialist over Frey, who won only 32% of the delegates votes.

Frey will still be on the ballot in the November election when he will face State Senator Omar Fateh, an ally of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and a key figure in the Democratic Socialists of America.  That's the same group that provided the shock troops that last month gave Zohran Mawdani the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City.

The crisis of leftist and incompetent "progressive" leadership of America’s big cities is spreading like a poison throughout the Northeast and Midwest.  Our great cities are being ruined - one by one.

Common sense Dems - and there are many of them left - are in the minority.

Scott Graham, who chairs the Democratic Party in the Minneapolis area, warns: "The Democratic Socialists of America want to disarm all law enforcement officers. They want to free all incarcerated people, legalize the sex trade, the drug trade, homelessness and squatting."

Doesn't it just want to make you jump out of your chair and book a flight to the Twin Cities?

6) Hey, Everybody Else Already Moved

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