Tag Archives: politics

What’s fair is fair: The PRC issues a final order on the “appropriate share” issue, Save the Post Office, Steve Hutkins Another one of the posts by Steve Hutkins about the USPS. The effort by commercial interests to get the USPS to increase pricing has been going on for years. At the bottom, I have attached a post by Mark Jamison (“When Titans Collide: UPS petitions the PRC to change USPS costing methodologies”) detailing the efforts of UPS to get...

– Sandwichman @ Econospeak The Unbearable Tightness of Peaking Sandwichman came across a fascinating and disconcerting new dissertation, titled “Carbon Purgatory: The Dysfunctional Political Economy of Oil During the Renewable Energy Transition” by Gabe Eckhouse. An adaptation of one of the chapters, dealing with fracking, was published in Geoforum in 2021 As some of you may know, the specter of Peak Oil was allegedly “vanquished” by the...

Weekly Indicators for January 30 – February 3 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. While yesterday’s blockbuster jobs report dominated the monthly reports, several important weekly reports, notably the 4 week average of retail sales as measured by Redbook, and the temporary Staffing Index, weakened further to new post-pandemic lows. On the other hand, January tax withholding payments had...

I have been negligent and have not followed up on Steve Hutkin’s “Save The Post Office” commentaries. There is a lot going on at the USPS. Appointing two new postal governors to the USPS board is an important issue. Important to the nation if it is ever going to wrestle the USPS away from Louis DeJoy and Corporate interests such as UPS, FedEx, etc. Is Biden still considering appointing two new postal governors? Save the Post Office, Steve...

President Biden has so far insisted he will not negotiate over the debt ceiling.  This makes sense on one level.  The Republicans are threatening to blow up the economy to get the Democrats to agree to – and share the blame for – unpopular budget cuts.  It is easy to see why Democrats want to resist going down this path. Just saying “no” to negotiations may not work But in the real world things are not so simple.  The House Republicans may pass...

January jobs report: like a sports car at maximum acceleration    – by New Deal democrat My focus on this report was on whether manufacturing and construction jobs turned negative or not, and whether the deceleration apparent in job growth would continue. Both of those were answered emphatically in the negative. Here’s my in depth synopsis. HEADLINES: 517,000 jobs added. Private sector jobs increased 443,000. Government jobs increased...

Black History Month is in February if you do not know it. Prof. Heather Cox Richardson celebrates it with a mixture of past and present facts, points, and references to it. Some of her points are ugly. Amongst her reverence to Black History Month is the detail of how the Battle Hymn of the Republic came to be. “February 1, 2023,” Letters from an American, Prof. Heather Cox Richardson On February 1, 1862, in the early days of the Civil War,...

This post is another part of a mini-series I am doing on healthcare and shootings. First, why the designation of bullet – spewing – weapons in this post? It eliminates the discussion of whether we are talking about a pistol, a bolt action Springfield, a semi-automatic Garand, a M14 with a twenty-round clip, a M60. or a Thompson Sub. There is a cost to owning a bullet – spewing – weapon. A cost which many people refuse to understand. There is...

JOLTS and jobless claims: the labor market remains a strong positive  – by New Deal democrat The message from the JOLTS report for December yesterday and jobless claims for last week today is that the labor market remains the strongest sector of the economy, with plenty of unfilled job openings, and almost no layoffs. Initial jobless claims last week declined -3,000 to 183,000, and the 4 week moving average declined -5,750 to 191,750. Both...

Democracy Under Threat in Peru! — The Long Downtrodden Majority of Peru are Complaining About Being Governed by a Minority Elite That has Subjugated Them for Some 500 years! — The first headline was the one we read and heard. The second one; too long, too complex. How can it be that a minority elite of European descent can rule a democracy for 200 years now? By keeping the indigenous majority poor and ill-educated then using the...