Tag Archives: Hot Topics

Threw a wrench in it . . . , Homeless On The High Desert, Ten Bears December 13, 2021 in g’da said  If this is new to you, you haven’t been paying attention ~ Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows sent an email saying the National Guard would be present to ‘protect pro Trump people’ in the lead up to the US Capitol insurrection, according to a new contempt report released by the January 6 committee Sunday night. Anyone that was...

Oil rebounds on Omicron optimism; SPR at another 18 1/2 year low as sales to Asian refiners begin, Focus of Fracking, RJS Not really much news this week; gasoline & distillate inventories continue to rebound from the lows, no big moves on prices or much else; the headline is almost contrived . . . the “sales to Asian refiners” came from an oil blogger who said we sold SPR oil to China and India. That information hasn’t been released...

There is an interesting discussion about a topic where I know especially little: K-12 education. Within it, there is a narrow discussion about whether it makes sense to try to teach statistics to people who don’t know calculus. This is a clear question. However, it seems that the people who discuss it skip a much more basic question which is why mathematical statistics should be taught to high school students, and an even more basic question which...

Blogger and Commenter RJS, MarketWatch 666, November’s consumer prices, October’s trade deficit, wholesale sales, and JOLTS The consumer price index rose 0.8% in November, as higher prices for food, energy, new and used vehicles, airline fares, and toys were only slightly offset by lower prices for information technology devices, hospital services and for vehicle insurance….the Consumer Price Index Summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics...

This post comes by way of Joel Eissenberg’s Facebook blog and is an edited recital of Juan Cole’s presentation at Informed Comment. “Stop Wall Street from Grabbing Traditional Medicare,” F. Douglas Stephenson __________ I am going to add to Joel’s depiction of the future as I too had heard of the coming attempt to force seniors into the commercial healthcare program – Medicare Advantage. This is the only time I will tie the words Medicare and...

Last night, Professor Heather Cox Richardson discusses the undermining of a citizen’s civil rights by SCOTUS in support of a state law which allows state citizens to infringe upon the rights of other citizens, female citizens within the state even though the actions of the later cause no harm to the former. It is appearing to be a matter of control supported by a court having known religious beliefs restricting a citizen’s actions in particular...

Farmer and Agricultural Economic Michal Smith I hear this from time to time both at the market and also from the general public even in the agricultural community. It elicits a response longer than what I can usually muster as I pull my quill of sharpened microeconomic arrows of defense around to meet my macroeconomic bow. I’ve usually already lost most when I say, “well actually it’s cheaper”. The cost of food isn’t the problem. It’s more about...

One non horrible effect of the Covid 19 epidemic is that people have become interested in immunology. I am pleased by this, but have the sense that journalists over-simplify. Roughly they act as if the immune system consists of circulating antibodies and killer t-cells. I think this post might be of some interest to some readers. First acquired immunity does indeed come in two types called cellular and humoral. That does refer to killer...

Many months and many mutations ago, I argued that one shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was enough to protect against the original Sars Cov2. Since then delta. It doesn’t especially evade, but is more generally fit and I thought (and probably didn’t post) that two shots are needed given delta. Now omicron. Pfizer just claimed that three shots are enough against omicron, although two are not. Putting my shoulder where my mouth wasn’t (until...

Construction Spending Rose 0.2% in October after Prior Months Were Much Revised Higher, MarketWatch 666, RJS The Census Bureau’s report on construction spending for October (pdf) estimated that the month’s seasonally adjusted construction spending would work out to $1,598.0 billion annually if extrapolated over an entire year, which was 0.2 percent (+/-1.2 percent)* above the revised September estimated annual rate of $1,594.8 billion...