Tag Archives: Hot Topics

A soft landing (disinflation without a recession) looks possible.  Also the remaining threat is the FED’s sticking with high interest rates, even though inflation is at a very reasonable level. I personally publicly and will almost certainly decline even if unemployment remains low. The change can be predicted, because the US index includes owner equivalent rent, a price which no one pays which is a calculation of how much homeowners would pay if...

I have long thought that there is a (partially effective) treatment for opiate addiction — suboxone. To review suboxone is a mixture of buprenorphine and naloxone. Buprenorphine is a partial opiate receptor agonist (activator) which also blocks other opiates. At least when taken orally, it relieves opiate craving but does not make people high and prevents them from getting high with other opiates. Naloxone is the well know opiate antagonist used in...

by Prof. Heather Cox Richardson Letters from an American Almost one hundred and forty-two years ago, on September 5, 1882, workers in New York City celebrated the first Labor Day holiday with a parade. The parade almost didn’t happen: there was no band, and no one wanted to start marching without music. Once the Jewelers Union of Newark Two showed up with musicians, the rest of the marchers, eventually numbering between 10,000 and 20,000 men...

What is the American Car Culture today? You do not need to look closely or even need glasses to examine or see what it is today. It is no longer a car, it is SUVs and pickups, larger pickups two rows of seating, and even larger pickups with dually wheels. Many are vehicles which never haul anything except one driver and maybe a small family once and a while. Now manufacturers are trying to electrify them for longer distances to get similar mileage...

Who is the bigger scab? In an interview with Musk, Trump appeared to endorse firing striking workers. The United Auto Workers Union has filed federal labor charges against former President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the union said Tuesday. In a thread on X, the union said Trump and Musk had illegally attempted to “threaten and intimidate workers who stand up for themselves by engaging in protected concerted activity, such as strikes.” Musk...

by The one-handed economist Humans are not doing enough mitigation to slow — let alone reverse — climate change chaos. Average global temperature is now +1.2C, far above which is on track to exceed the 2015 Paris Agreement’s target of “holding the increase in the global average temperature… increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels”  by 2034.* In this 2011 post (“We’re screwed, now what?”), I wrote: Mitigation-focused investments...

by Emma Marris AB: I grew up with trees around us in the city of Chicago. Mostly giant Ash trees or the soft wood maples. They provided shade to the front and back of the house. Our first home in Wood Dale had a giant Burr Oak next to the garage and a Hickory in the middle of the back yard near the well. In Madison Wisconsin I planted trees and the same holds true in Michigan just north of Ann Arbor. Here and south of Phoenix, AZ we bought...

“Still no power? Here’s when lights could turn on,” StormTeam2 The lights have gone out in many parts of Ohio. Commenter and sometime writer r.j.s. citing conditions near his home after bad weather passed through. CLEVELAND (WJW) — FirstEnergy is calling storms that hit Northeast Ohio on Tuesday the most impactful to hit The Illuminating Company service territory in more than 30 years. On Tuesday evening, heavy downpours and strong winds...

The US economy appears to be emerging from the recent recession (pace the Fed interest rate decisions). There’s a general consensus that that recession was largely caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent supply chain disruptions. What lessons might be learned on how to maximally blunt the impact of future pandemics while minimizing negative economic consequences?Here’s a cross-sectional analysis including all 50 US states plus the District of...

by Joyce Vance Civil Discourse Tonight, the reporting is that Vice President Harris’ choice of running mate is down to Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania or Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota. Although Shapiro has a somewhat higher public profile because of his work taking on Trump and election deniers in court when he was the state’s attorney general, Walz has closed that gap in recent days. The more liberal of the two, he recently offered...