Tag Archives: Hot Topics

Robert Waldmann has some questions and thoughts! Hi Robert, AB upgraded the way we post now. (run75441). I am going to ask someone to engage your post who has far greater knowledge than I or anyone else has. He is a Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and participated in the Moderna clinical trials. I am fairly sure that I am going to regret this post. Also it will be extremely long with almost exactly zero overlap with any field in...

Blogger and Commenter Professor Joel Essenberg addresses Covid variants being called mutations. As a geneticist, I am troubled by the promiscuous use of the word “mutation” to describe amino acid or nucleotide differences from a reference sequence. In nearly all cases, there is no known functional significance attached to these differences. Accordingly, the differences are best referred to as “variants,” not mutations. I’ve had my genome...

Coronavirus dashboard for November 26: pessimistic and optimistic scenarios for the winter wave, New Deal democrat I hope all of you had a Happy Thanksgiving. Since I haven’t posted one in a bit, here is an update on the pandemic.As an initial matter, in the last day or two, there has been a mini-panic about a new strain out of South Africa called B.1.1.529 which may or may not get the designation Nu.  While this *may* be a concern, I wouldn’t...

RJS at MarketWatch 666, October Durable Goods: New Orders Down 0.5%, Shipments Up 1.5%, Inventories Up 0.6% The Advance Report on Durable Goods Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories and Orders for October (pdf) from the Census Bureau reported that the value of the widely followed new orders for manufactured durable goods decreased by $1.2 billion or 0.5 percent to $260.1 billion in October, after September’s new orders were revised but still...

EconoSpeak: Playing With The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Barkley Rosser Over the last month crude oil prices have noticeably declined from in the neighborhood of $85-86 per barrel to $78-80 per barrel. But there has been only a very small decline in retail gasoline prices, and the headlines even as of yesterday was all about “sharply rising gas prices.”  So, Pres. Biden has moved to release a record amount of oil from the Strategic Petroleum...

Thanksgiving finds Bill is in Arizona in a new home. If he is not on site early in the morning, you will know why in the Midwest and East Coast. He reports the ordering of a turkey dinner this year as it was too difficult to move all the people together for a family dinner so soon. Christmas spent together will be a bigger celebration in 2021. My own family is all together for the first time in a couple years in California. We traveled there a...

Former Washington Monthly writer Nancy Le Tourneau had this post up on her own site Horizons. The topic? Biden signing proclamations restoring the original boundaries of Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante and Northeast Canyons, and Seamounts National Monuments. “A President for ALL Americans,” Horizons, Nancy LeTourneau’s big picture look at politics and life Nancy: I didn’t recognize the picture on the left. It was apparently taken...

MarketWatch 666 Blogger RJS on the macroeconomic implications of retail sales, estimates the impact of retail sales on GDP. Retail Sales Rose 1.7% in October after August & September Sales Were Revised Higher Seasonally adjusted retail sales increased 1.7% in October after retail sales for August and September were revised higher…the Advance Retail Sales Report for October (pdf) from the Census Bureau estimated that seasonally adjusted...

The Rittenhouse Verdict and the Future of Vigilante Violence There are typically two levels in a case like Rittenhouse’s, the individual issues of justice and accountability, and the social implications of the crime and its judicial resolution.  I want to spend a moment with the second. America faces an impending crisis of vigilante suppression of democratic rights.  In the past year we’ve seen militias openly threatening violence in takeovers...

Blogger RJS, MarketWatch 666 and Focus on Fracking, Global Oil Shortage at 1,930,000 barrels per day in October as OPEC’s output falls 588,000 barrels per day short of quota OPEC’s October Oil Market Report Thursday of this week saw the release of OPEC’s November Oil Market Report, which includes OPEC & global oil data for October, and hence it gives us a picture of the global oil supply & demand situation for the third month after...