Tag Archives: politics

How hard should the Fed hit the brakes to bring inflation down?  The answer to this question depends, in part, on just how damaging you think inflation is.  And one reason to think that inflation is harmful is simply that most people – normal people, not CEOs or financiers – seem to really dislike it.  If most people think steady inflation of 8% is worse than steady inflation of 2%, that is, in fact, a (non-dispositive) reason to think that 2%...

 – by New Deal democrat I call industrial production the King of Coincident Indicators, because more often than any other metric it coincides with the peaks and troughs of economic activity as determined by the NBER, the official arbiter of recessions. Unlike retail sales, the news this morning for October was not so good. While manufacturing production did increase +0.2% to a new post-pandemic high, overall production declined -0.1% for...

Oregon becomes the first state to make Affordable Healthcare a fundamental right. May 2021, the Oregon Legislature referred the proposed amendment to the voters. Known then as Senate Joint Resolution 12, it passed on a near-party-line vote. Democrats supported it. Republicans opposed it (what-a-surprise). Then-Democrat Betsy Johnson, who was running for governor as an unaffiliated candidate, joining the opposition. Voters were deciding whether...

A friend sent this along, no link: Tags: Family Values

Each week, I go through the reads, I am getting in my In-Box. I would like to think there are some of these articles which might make for an interesting read to Angry Bear readers. They keep pestering me to subscribe. As it is now, many I skim. If it interests me I might take it a bit deeper. I always like to analyze, “what am I going to do with this information? Much of it is a moment in passing and it slips to the back of the pile. Later on, its-I...

It has been widely noted that Trumpy Republicans have largely accepted vote tallies and conceded defeat.  There have been few strong claims of fraud or election theft by major candidates (the main exception so far appears to be Kari Lake), and no efforts that I am aware of to mobilize protests against the election results, much less violent protest. So that raises the question we have been grappling with for 6 years now:  to what extent is Trump...

“‘Kill them’: Arizona election workers face midterm threats,” (msn.com), Linda So, Peter Eisler and Jason Szep Some more information on counting votes. Guess where? Election workers in Arizona’s fiercely contested county of Maricopa faced more than 100 violent threats and intimidating communications. This was occurring during the run-up to Tuesday’s midterm Election. Most of the threats alleging election conspiracy theories were promoted by...

As usual I am reading a lot about how the latest shocking election outcome shows the polls were wrong and that polling has become unreliable (no links I’ve been reading this on Twitter). This is not a new assessment of the polls. It was widely argued (again Twitter now I cite Yglesias by name) that the polls were probably wrong. The alleged errors are exact opposites. Before the election, it was widely (to universally) asserted that polls implied...

Three different people, same crappy emotion? Trump has been an electoral liability for the Republican party for at least the last 3 elections, and possibly 4 (depending on what you think would have happened in 2016 without Trump).  So far, his power over MAGA voters and his spitefulness – his evident willingness to tear down Republicans who show disloyalty – has kept Republican elites largely in line.  But some Republicans are beginning to...

I googled [what the hell is happening in Brazil] and the only ones of the firsts 10 hits on the election are on how the military found no evidence of fraud. (your googling will vary as google shows me what it expects me to click and now knows much more about me than I do). It is very alarming and sad that the military has expressed an opinioni on a matter which is none of their business (I don’t blame the generals, I think they had to, see...