faultlinesweekly

The Energy Information Administration's August 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook , released on August 11, puts one number at the centre of this winter's natural gas story. The outlook states that “we expect natural gas inventories to be a record 3,985 billion cubic feet (Bcf) at the end of October 2026,” a figure “which is an increase of 19 Bcf compared with the July STEO and 5% above the five-year average.” Ten years earlier the same commodity produced almost the same reading. On the EIA's weekly Lower 48 working gas series , the last October report of 2016, for the week ending October 28, recorded 3,963 Bcf. The two figures sit 22 Bcf apart, about half a percent. What changed is everything the stock has to be measured against. A stock figure is a numerator. On its own it is a volume, not a condition. This piece takes up a narrow question: when the numerator is flat across a decade and the denominator is not, which denominator should a reader use, and do the pl...

Two federal series describe U.S. goods imports from China every month, and neither contains a tariff. The Bureau of Labor Statistics prices what the foreign seller charges. The Census Bureau reports what U.S. Customs and Border Protection appraises the same goods at. Because the duty is absent from both, dividing one by the other strips the price term out of the trade numbers and leaves something neither agency publishes. The July 2026 import price release, issued August 18, 2026, put the price index for imports from China 2.7 percent above its July 2025 level. Eight months earlier, in the November 2025 data released January 15, 2026, it sat 3.6 percent below its year-earlier level. Both Measurements Stop Before the Duty Is Assessed The BLS question-and-answer page states: "The prices for the items used to calculate the Import/Export Price Indexes exclude duties." The reason is a national-accounts requirement, stated in the Handbook of Methods: "For example, import...