About 15 years ago, we replaced our electric stove and range, which was breaking, with a gas stove and range. I prefer cooking on gas. In addition to the oven and cooktop, we had a gas furnace, water heater and clothes dryer. To be fair, >80% of the electricity in Missouri at the time was generated with coal.The problem with natural gas is that it is ca. 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, and there’s a lot of methane...

It is about time, Congress puts in place an ethics code for judges, Justices, and themselves. If you do not believe this is needed, read this: “Supreme Court Justices Accepted Hundreds of Gifts Worth Millions of Dollars,” Angry Bear. All told, the number of gifts FTC identified that were accepted by the current nine, plus the eight who’ve left the court since 2004 (Justices Rehnquist, Stevens, O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg and...

Much of this is the result of commercial healthcare gaming the system with pricing. Medicare Advantage can not compete head-to-head with Traditional Medicare much less the VA. VA sent me to Barrows (Arizona) for an issue with my back and right leg. I was going numb and it was painful to walk. So to make up for just giving me epidural shots in my spine (surgeon’s suggestions), they decide to work on my blood pressure, cholesterol, and weight. They...

Unless there is some alternative, which there is not at this time dips in the dollar should be bought. 

Today (September 6, 2024), MMTed releases Episode 5 in the Second Season of our Manga series – The Smith Family and their Adventures with Money. Have a bit of fun with it while learning Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and circulate it to those who you think will benefit …William Mitchell — Modern Monetary TheoryEpisode 5 of the Smith Family Manga (Season 2) is now available – the Finance Report hots upBill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and...

The Great Depression: Can It Happen Again?

Farming is a risky business. Always has been. A federal program to keep farmers in business during droughts seems like a good idea to me. Sadly, it’s also a target for fraud:“On a normal day, the promising storms produced snow or rain that would fall onto a system of official weather stations at airstrips or town halls, into heated “tipping buckets.” When the teeter-totter buckets filled with a thimbleful of water, the seesaw tilted, dropping one...

Sailing Alone by Richard J. King Reviewed by one-handed economist David Zetland I read this 2023 book by Richard J. King on the recommendation of LS. It’s all about those sailors who take to the sea alone, with only wind (or muscle power). It’s about the mental and physical challenges, and how technology and society have added or (mostly) subtracted from them. I thought the book was insightful. It definitely convinced me that sailing...

 – by New Deal democrat There’s no big economic news today or tomorrow, so let’s take a more detailed look at the leading indicators from Friday’s jobs report. It turns out, the news wasn’t nearly as bad as the headline employment number. Let’s start with the negative stuff. The simple story is, manufacturing is in a funk. Employment in manufacturing declined -24,000, which is tied for a two-year low. Meanwhile, trucking employment declined...

Economic stability is often viewed as a distant goal. Many believe that simply managing government debt will suffice. This is a dangerous misconception. Ignoring private debt levels is like ignoring a ticking time bomb. When households are over-leveraged, they can’t spend. This leads to reduced demand, which spirals into economic downturns. The Great Depression is a prime example. As private debt soared, spending plummeted. The more people tried to pay off their debts,...