Tag Archives: US EConomics

The COVID-19 pandemic is just what the Doctor ordered for American education. Well, it could be. First, we must, as is our wont, muddle for as long as possible. Plenty of time. What with students and teachers being quarantined one right after another, it’s going to be a long year. Time a plenty to fall for all that state propaganda about how classrooms are safe and kids need to be in the classroom just like before. You’d think we would learn. It’s been a...

We the majority 60% are being tyrannized by the minority 40%. Other the democratically elected House of Representatives, we are being governed by a President and Senate that are not representative of us, that oppose our majority positions. We the majority are being particularly tyrannized by the current Senate Majority leader who is from the small state of Kentucky. Kentucky is a state of less than 4.5 million population that gets back about $2.40 for...

The real story revealed by the New York Times Trump tax returns bombshell is not that Donald Trump paid no taxes in 10 out of 15 years or that he paid $750 in 2016 and 2017. The real story is that he doesn’t have net income to service his debt. There is nothing inherently illegal about that. He did it before in the 1980s and when real estate prices stopped rising in 1990, his creditors were left holding the bag. Hyman Minsky wrote about Donald Trump’s...

I had written on the high cost of pharmaceuticals late 2019, “Another Look at Drug Pricing, Costs, and Why” citing from the World Health Organization, the ICER, JAMA Network, Health Affairs, and my own posts (links below and in text). You will find the some of the same articles cited in new commentary of increased drug costs in the Washington Post, Kaiser Health News, and Medpage Today. It appears the three of them have caught up with Angry Bear’s...

In the 19th century, employers stove off employee demands by bringing in immigrants willing to work under existing conditions. In the 20th Century, consequent the Great Depression, prohibition of child labor, immigration reform, … it was no longer so easy for employers to ignore workers demands. Unions took root and membership grew and so did the workers’ wages and benefits; welcome: the end of child labor, the 40 hour week, living wages, and paid...

Though more different than alike, they do have a lot in common. All are, in some way, progeny of the microprocessor. Some were born in around Silicon Valley, others quite distant. The first generation was born in the US early in the last third of the 20th Century. The second was born near the end of the late 20th — early in the 21st Century. None of them could have been born in an earlier era. Microsoft* 1972, Apple*1976, and Oracle*1977, were...

Steve Hutkins of Save The Post Office updates us on the “Jones vs USPS” suit filed in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. He has been live-blogging the events from Save The Post Office blog. September 21, 2020 Big news today: The plaintiffs have won a second suit against the Postal Service. The judge in Jones v USPS, Victor Morrero of the SDNY, has ordered a preliminary injunction preventing the Postal Service from enacting...

The COVID-19 Pandemic, the inadequate response thereto, and the incompetency of the Trump Presidency in general, combined, have exposed our nation’s weaknesses and failings to an extent unknown since at least the Great Depression. This is likely a do or die moment for America. Recovery will be difficult. Improbable unless we are careful in our choice of goals and daring in our efforts to achieve them. The margins for error do not allow for dawdling....

Working-class Black and Latino Americans, more likely to be paid lower wages, less likely to own significant assets; feel that they are being deprived of a fair share; see this as a consequence of white privilege. Meanwhile, white working-class American’s see themselves as less than privileged, barely hanging on; feel that such demands by Blacks and Latinos amount to a threat to their meager share, their livelihood. Neither group is the other group’s...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Let’s take a look at the ‘Greatest’ Trump Economy. The first graph shows the BLS Civilian Unemployment rate from 2000 t0 2020. Use the link for a better look Civilian unemployment rate If you look really close, no you have to look a little closer yet, you can see the Trump effect. The second graph […]