250th year of our country

July 4th certainly crept up on me!

And I didn’t know we were celebrating our 250th year until about a week ago when the news started talking about the fair in Washington DC.

Normally I would be excited about celebrating because it’s always nice to celebrate something but this year I’m in no mood for it.

Things aren’t going well.

That war with Iran is still going on. I don’t know if the ceasefire is still holding. The latest news I’m getting when I google is that the ceasefire fell apart. That sounds about right. And the Strait of Hormuz is still closed although the truce was supposed the open the Strait.

The Strait’s closure is driving prices around the world. That is the second layer. The first layer is the tariffs.

Here’s my latest rundown on prices of selected items:

• Both gasoline and diesel (diesel is fundamental for transportation) have gone down the past few weeks. According to my PowerBI pull from FRED, it looks like gasoline and diesel peaked around 5/11/2026 and have been trending down despite the Iran war. One small set of good news.
• On the other hand, fertilizer has been on an upward trend since January 2025 (note, that is before the Iran war). But visually, the really steep rise has occurred since March 2026. I suspect the combination of tariffs, and the Strait blockade is driving the fertilizer price upward and driving farming bankruptcies.
• Sulfuric acid and helium, which are products going into technology – well, at least that is what I have read, seem to be leveling off. I don’t really see the price jacking up due to shortages.
• Now for regular consumers such as you and I, milk prices continue to surge. Neither tariff or Iran war has anything to do with milk prices. Something else is driving it.
• Egg prices have declined dramatically since the Biden years. I really do believe the egg prices were due to the bird flu affecting the chicken stock.
• Coffee, though, which can be affected by tariffs, has been surging steeply.
• Beef prices have also been going up, probably affected by tariffs, but prices have not been updated since April.

Unemployment – the messaging is mixed or maybe confusing is a better word. The unemployment rate fell to 4.2% (last month was 4.3%) and yet, there’s a lot of people I know that have been searching for jobs for months. I was talking to someone and she was hinting that she wasn’t sure about the data. For now, I listen to Paul Krugman because the last I heard, he still believes in the numbers.

Although, I will also say I have heard a lot of people are getting interviews.

There’s the AI. I still see news about senior executives and AI CEOs saying AI will replace humans. Concern about the dystopian AI is still out there. Young adults are definitely opposed to AI since it is impacting their job prospects. Life is so much harder for them.

And the noise around data centers. A lot of Republicans, especially those out in the rural areas are vehemently opposed to data centers in their hometown for good reason. Generally, they cause a rise in electricity, sometimes bring polluted water, cause severe noise pollution, and generally make life miserable for those living nearby. I think this is the one area where both Republicans and Democrats (regular people) can agree on.

Climate change is still around. As a matter of fact, Europe has been undergoing a heat wave that is shocking. I once saw temperatures of 114 degrees F. I didn’t think Europe got that hot. I think so far there has been about 1000 deaths in France. This is surprising to me.

And of course, the US will be suffering from a severe heat wave during the 4th of July weekend (basically from Thursday through Saturday – maybe Sunday) – with real temperatures, not heat indexes, of over 100 degrees F. Adding in the effect of heat indexes and we are talking about feel like temperatures over 110 degrees F.

Adding to the heat of climate change, we will be in the heat of the midterm voting cycle where conversations get very heated. I do worry about the rising prospects of violence as we head into the fall.

And lastly, it feels like some of our freedoms are going away.

All in all, a very depressing situation to find ourselves in during this 250th year. The state of democracy may not last much longer.