Tag Archives: politics

Let’s be very clear: in vitro fertilization (IVF) results in far more zygotes than will ever be implanted. Further, pre-implantation testing means that some zygotes will be rejected. In the end, this means that millions of fertilized eggs will be discarded. That was always baked in the IVF cake. For reasons that escape me as a PhD geneticist, some people believe that the cluster of cells that we call “zygotes” are the moral equivalent of a fully...

Excellent piece by one of CEPR’s Domestic Program Interns . . . Alex Richwine. That name rings a bell with me. I am sure you will find this piece to be an excellent report detailing university investment returns. Quite apropos . . . give todays circumstances. ~~~~~~~~ University Endowment Returns Don’t Measure Up by Alex Richwine and Dean Baker CEPR Of the many demands made by student protestors in recent weeks, the demand to divest...

Nice Evening Read. I am not a big believer in tariffs. However, as it is today and from the seventies, domestic companies have relocated to countries to escape avoid associated Labor and Domestic costs prevalent in the United States. Cost such as healthcare, OT, work conditions, Workman’s Comp, SS, etc. and there are issues such as child labor, etc. It is purposeful avoidance I am hoping the tariffs will apply to those companies as well as...

 – by New Deal democrat To reiterate my Big Picture theme for this year, now that the supply chain tailwind has ended, will the effects of the 2022-23 Fed rate hikes drag the economy down towards recession at last, or will there be a “soft landing” (or no landing at all) instead, because interest rates have not increased in the past 12+ months? As a result, I am focusing most heavily on the leading sectors of manufacturing production and...

by Lloyd Alter Carbon Upfront! Llyod discusses the changing needs of the largest retirement population to be occurring in the next decade or baby boomers. Baby Boomers are on the verge of requiring smaller living spaces in close proximity to transportation, shopping, and healthcare. Easier and greater accessibility is paramount going forward.as they will not be as mobile as they once were. Cars may be out of the question. Living quarters...

 – by New Deal democrat Let me tie this morning’s report on April existing home sales into my two last posts (Part 1 and Part 2), which concerned the huge role that shelter prices, and the underlying shortfall in housing capacity, have in the continued elevation in overall consumer prices. So let’s start by looking at the last 10 year history of existing home inventories [note: all graphs in this article are from the site Trading Economics,...

This is kind of an interesting story. The former Surgeon General to Trump is complaining about his ER bill after walking up the 2700 foot high Camelback mountain in AZ. Done it. That is not a high climb. I suspect the heat and insufficient water or hydration did him in. The other point is he is complaining about a healthcare bill. This is the man who had the president’s ear. I doubt he brought up the cost of healthcare to trump once. As far as a...

Florida Legislature agreed to pass the optional Medicaid expansion. A year later it says no. The federal government pays about 69 cents of every dollar spent on the program. Florida still wants kids to pay also. More than 22K children dropped from Florida KidCare in 2024 as state challenges federal eligibility protections by Christine Jordan Sexton Florida Politics AB: In a move that some have called “egregious,” or glaringly ignorant in...

How Famine and Starvation Could Affect Gazans for Generations to Come by Neroli Price, Salman Ahad Khan and Gabrielle Berbey Reveal News Research on World War II’s Dutch “Hunger Winter” has terrifying implications for Gaza’s malnourished children – and then for their children. Famine is already happening in parts of Gaza, a top U.S. humanitarian official  publicly acknowledged last week for the first time. After six months of Israeli war...

OK, not really.  But this is real (politico, via Political Wire): The expectations game … Trump also returned to another golden oldie last night: proposing a drug test for his debate opponent. He used this tactic in 2016 against Clinton. The gist is that if his opponent looks good at a debate, it’s only the result of illegal substances. “I don’t want him coming in like the State of the Union,” Trump said. “He was high as a kite. I said, ‘Is...