Louis DeJoy, the Trump-appointed head of the United States Postal Service (USPS), is screwing with the 2024 election. His failure could impact the outcome of a close election. If it is close. With the help of a former NC postmaster and Steve Hutkins of Save the Post Office, we have been tracking the lack of progress with the USPS. Keep in mind, the USPS goal is to deliver mail to every segment of the population, no matter where they live, and on a...
Read More »USPS Changes Will Slow Rural Delivery
There is an assumption by many politicians and believing citizens, the USPS is supposed to be profitable entity and run like a business. This is what the Postmaster General brings to the table as a solution. It was never the goal of the USPS to be such. Its task is to deliver mail to every place in the nation at the same amount of time. This in itself costs. PMG Dejoy believes this is ok. The USPS can penalize people who live outside of a 50-mile...
Read More »“An Aging Salesman Trying to Close One Last Deal”
September 23, 2024 Prof. Heather Cox-Richardson Letters from an American That is how they are describing a desperate Trump . “There’s nothing sadder than an aging salesman trying to close one last deal,” MSNBC’s Ryan Teague Beckwith wrote on September 21. Beckwith went on to list seven of Trump’s most recent campaign promises, most delivered off the cuff at rallies, that are transparent attempts to close the deal with different groups of...
Read More »Disaggregating the Big Picture: the Fed still wants to make your recession forecast wrong
– by New Deal democrat Today, New Deal democrat offers a Big Picture hypothesis. This is Housing Week, but there is no significant data today, and I’m going to wait for new home sales to be reported on Wednesday before commenting on how existing home sales fit in. In the meantime, let me unpack a Big Picture look. Since the Fed began actively managing interest rates over 60 years ago, expansions and recessions have followed a typical...
Read More »As The Trump Legal World Turns. Not to be confused with a Familiar TV Soap Opera . . .
Trumps Court Cases an Update by Joyce Vance Civil Discourse Just so you know, I am not kidding. This reads as a soap opera. Poor Trump so many issue . . . Full time subscriber to Civil Discourse. Hope ou enjoy his reading of he issues, ~~~~~~~ This week, two very important Legal World developments will take place. The first is a Mississippi case that could end up having a national impact. On Tuesday, the Fifth Circuit Court of...
Read More »UH-OH: The slowest mail in the country is in key swing states, NBC investigation finds . . .
by Steve Hutkins Save the Post Office In 2020, when the United States Postal Service began an ambitious plan to modernize and consolidate services in the middle of the pandemic. Its slow service wound up disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters whose ballots never made it to their elections offices in time. Four years later – by some measures – USPS performance is now actually worse, with another nail-biter of an election...
Read More »Housing Shortage, Housing Bubble, Soft Landing, FED Brilliance or Lick?
I think the title makes it clear that this will be a rambling confused post. I am typing on with the thought that something is better than nothing and no one has to read this. The first topic – house prices, is in fact one that interests me a lot. I have a regression which suggests that a high ratio of house prices to the general price level is terrible news, because it indicates a housing bubble which will burst and be followed by a prolonged...
Read More »The 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act
by Bill Gale EconoFact The 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) was the most sweeping realignment of the U.S. tax code in over three decades. It lowered tax rates, simplified taxes, raised the government debt, and was regressive, benefitting people who are well off more than the middle-class and the poor. Many provisions of the TCJA expire in 2025 unless action is preserves them. What would the expiration, or the continuation, of these...
Read More »News Media Lying to the Public
I follow Dean Baker because it is easy to do so. I do not end up pondering whether something written makes sense or not. Perhaps, my agreement is due to my seeing the same issues and understanding them. However let’s face it, bad news media does sell advertisements which pays for this. If I told you everything was rosy as documented at Angry Bear, would you read us? You would probably shrug your shoulders and yawn. If we give you something to...
Read More »US for-profit healthcare system still ranks dead last
It should come as no surprise to regular AB readers that the US for-profit healthcare system is a disaster for everyone except the executives and stock-holders. Here’s yet another confirmation:“A report out Thursday shows that the United States’ for-profit healthcare system still ranks dead last among peer nations on key metrics, including access to care and health outcomes such as life expectancy at birth. “The new analysis from the...
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