Tag Archives: Featured Stories

The Institute for New Economic Thinking has an interview up with Peter Dorman about his new book on climate policy, Alligators in the Arctic and How To Avoid Them.  I haven’t read the book yet, but Peter shared some of his writing on climate with me a few years ago when I was trying to learn a bit about the topic, and I am sure the book is excellent.  Peter is an engaging writer, very knowledgeable about climate issues, interdisciplinary in his...

Kind of a mixed bag of what news was showing up in My In-Box. It was evenly spread amongst various topics. Ford building a battery plant just like everyone else is planning. Wall Street buying up residential homes. That purchasing of houses will come to no-good for the average citizen. ACA Preventive is under threat by a looney federal judge in Texas and SCOTUS has to decide. Non-Opioid pain treatment sounds like a good idea. If you do not like the...

Review of “Demagogue”“Demagogue: The life and long shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy” by Larry Tye is a particularly timely read as the nation continues in the grip of another political bully, Donald Trump. The parallels in their methods are striking and the degree to which McCarthy held the nation in thrall during the 1950s mirrors the fealty of the Trumpenproletariat today. We know how the McCarthy story ended, and it offers hope that the nation will...

Coronavirus dashboard for September 19: no, the pandemic is *not* over  – by New Deal democrat Contrary to the statement by President Biden last night, the coronavirus pandemic is *not* over. First, here’s the long term look at infectious particles in wastewater by Biobot, compared with confirmed cases: Levels of COVID in wastewater continue to be as high as at any point before last winter’s original Omicron onslaught. And confirmed...

Market consolidation is nowhere near revolutionary news these days, as we have seen meat processing plants loom ever larger. Sitting right outside of major or semi-major metropoles, freshly frozen stock of proteins are brought in at all hours of the day and night to sell at a meat retail counter in all large chain grocers around the country. This has more or less been the model since the 1980s where corporate consolidation, mergers, acquisitions, and...

Alan Collinge at Student Loan Justice Org. is showcasing on Facebook various people who still have student loans even after the small loan relief. With these student loan holders, the ten or twenty thousand will go to fees, interest, and penalties as they exist or as rolled into loans. Very little (if it does) will touch the loan origination amount. The funds become gifts to the loan industry which originated the loan or the present holder of these...

Lifted from notes by One handed economist David Zetland comes with this reminder about US life expectancy dropping. David goes further and gives the reasons for decreasing Life Expectancy. America, my increasingly ex-country, has lower life expectancy than 21 “peer” countries. This decline being due to a combination of death from Covid, cars, guns, and lifestyle. The first fact about Covid was sadly unsurprising: The coronavirus pandemic...

Sen. Lindsey Graham, SC has been busy as a cat trying to cover up his saying, “And I’ll say this: If there is a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information after the Clinton debacle … there will be riots in the street,” comment by saying several different things about what he was trying to say, when what he was really trying to do was bully the Justice Dept, the Democratic Party, the President, the Speaker of the House, the...

As always, I must start by saying I have no expertise and there is no reason anyone should be particularly interested in my thoughts. The question is how will the war in Ukraine end. I guess I have a guess, but it implies it will last a long time. I can think of 3 possibilities, Russian victory, Ukrainian victory or a negotiated peace. First, I think it won’t end with Russian victory. Given recent Ukrainian battlefield victories, this...

PPI, without the lagging phantom of Owners Equivalent Rent, declines in August, decelerates YoY  – by New Deal democrat What a difference it makes that PPI does not have a concept like “owners equivalent rent!” Overall PPI declined by -0.1%, following a -0.4% reading in July, together the two lowest readings since the pandemic lockdown months: Core PPI increased by 0.5% (blue in the graph below), which while historically high, was the...