Tag Archives: Featured Stories

Coronavirus dashboard for April 8: peak new infections *may* have occurred on April 4 – by New Deal democrat Here is the update through yesterday (April 7) I’ve changed the format, moving the “just the facts, ma’am” data to the top, and comments to the end. The four most important metrics are starred (***) below. Number and rate of increase of Reported Infections (from Johns Hopkins via arcgis.com) Number: up +31,480 to 368,449 (vs. 33,787 possible...

The D Word Yes, depression, and not the psychological type, although the economic type leads to the psychological type, whether ot not it is the other  way around (see Keynes’ “animal spirits). I often make fun of Robert J. Samuelson in the Washington Post, but in Washington Post today he raised the possibility that we are going into a depression, not just a bad recession.  On TV this evening I heard Austen Goolsby throw it out as well.  I suspect we...

Brace yourselves: the US is setting up a ghastly “natural experiment” – by New Deal democrat When I began my “Coronavirus Dashboard,” I was hopeful that it would document the slow progress towards turning a bad situation around, and the ultimate tamping down of the pandemic. Surely increasingly intense and overwhelming public pressure would force a critical mass of government officials to do what was necessary? Now I am not so sure. The number of cases...

The Covid-19 epidemic is creating a painful dilemma for policymakers.  On the one hand, we need to practice social distancing to keep people healthy and to prevent our hospitals from being overwhelmed.  Unfortunately, this strategy is causing a severe economic contraction as people avoid contact with others. An ideal response to this dilemma would have three basic components.  First, we would implement a hard, nation-wide lockdown to slow the spread of...

Alan Collinge of the Student Loan Justice Org. has a petition supporting the cancellation of Student Loan Debt. If we can bail out corporations again, why not bailing out people with excessive student loan debt? The student loan justice.org is counting on you and needs your help with “President Trump: Cancel Student Loans NOW.”  Join student loan justice.org and the 116,064 signers of the petition calling for President Trump to cancel student loan debt....

Coronavirus dashboard for March 22 This is a new daily or nearly daily update I hope to post, including the most important metrics to show how controlled – or out of control – the cononavirus pandemic is. Hopefully the numbers will move ever closer to the tipping point where the epidemic is under control.In order to bring this pandemic under control, and prevent both health and economic catastrophes, in my opinion the US needs 2 weeks of China (total...

I am sure by now many of you have read what the gov is and is not doing for us. The later is more prevalent as can be witnessed in the stimuli being offered. I am going to ask you to pay attention to the last item on ACA Healthcare Insurance. Whether you qualified or not in the past, you may be eligible for assistance now. I have broken this out into 4-points of which many of us might find ourselves. If you questions, PLEASE ASK, I will try to answer. The...

The Coronavirus Recession has begun This morning we got two reports that confirm the beginning of the Coronavirus Recession: initial jobless claims and the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index. Initial claims rose to 281,000 one week ago. They are now 15% higher than their low last April, as well as almost 15% higher preliminarily on a monthly basis than last March, and the 4 week moving average is just shy of 5% higher than one year ago.  This meets two...

The Coronavirus Recession (probably) begins Looks like today is going to be an interesting one at the Wall Street casino. As I write this, futures are down -10%. Does this mean Trump has to take back his autographed copies of the surge in the indexes Friday afternoon? I’ve expected this, since the reality that Trump was, as usual, lying in his Friday afternoon announcements didn’t occur until after 4 p.m. when the markets were already closed. Yesterday’s...

Trump Administration Continues to Attack the Environmental Projections First Put Into Place by the Nixon Administration If you, the reader, are uncertain whether to support Trump or whoever the Democratic candidate turns out to be, I urge you to consider the devastating reduction in protections for clean air, clean water, and clean land (thus also clean air/water and food) under the Trump administration’s ‘hate anything Obama’ approach that has put...