Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

The long leading indicators: on the cusp of turning negative?

– by New Deal democrat The long leading indicators: on the cusp of turning negative? A “long leading indicator” is an economic metric that reliably turns a year or more before the onset of a recession. Geoffrey Moore, who for decades published the Index of Leading Indicators, and in 1993 wrote  Leading Economic Indicators: New […]

TARP and Twitter

I had an interesting web experience. My tweet noting that the US Treasury made a profit on TARP got a relatively large number of replies. Many people were outraged in many contradictory ways. Twitter is damaging the discussion. Trump on twitter lowered the level of debate. I am now a carrier of Twitteritis into the […]

Redefining Political Correctness to Include Criticism of Appointments of Wall Street, Banking and Fossil Fuel Insiders to Regulatory Bodies

And Extreme Pro-Corporate Lawyers and Judges to the Supreme Court and the Lower Federal Courts. Seriously. So far, the Trump transition team does not seem particularly concerned, for instance, about a transition team staffed heavily with lobbyists from energy, agriculture, transportation, and banking. “Frankly, one of the refreshing parts of it about the whole Trump […]

Donald and Deportations

This post is partly inspired by “The cracks are already starting to show between Donald Trump and Republicans” by Amber Phillips at The Washington Post. My general impression is that the article mainly shows that cracks are already starting to show between Donald Trump and Donald Trump. More generally, the fact that Trump and the […]

Kellyanne Conway Plays With Matches

If Kelleyanne Conway wants to see truly massive protests, she should continue to threaten Harry Reid with (il)legal action for making fact-based allegations against Trump, while herself alleging that protesters against Trump are professional protesters—that they’re being paid. She seems unaware that she’s playing with matches.  But she is.    

The Democratic Establishment Thinks the Lesson of This Election Is That the Way For Democrats to Win Over White Voters In the Industrial Midwest Is to Switch Sides in the Culture Wars. I Guess. [Updated.]

The race to be the next head of the Democratic National Committee has quickly turned into a proxy fight between liberals and establishment types about where the party needs to go in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s stunning loss at the hands of Donald Trump on Tuesday. Liberals are insistent that Clinton’s defeat was the result of […]

Understanding American society: a few important bookmarks for a post-election Sunday

by New Deal democrat Understanding American society: a few important bookmarks for a post-election Sunday I wanted to bookmark a few facts that seem very important to understand American society in November 2016. I. Econometric election models accurately forecast a very close election: Figure 1 2. The working class blames Washington over Wall Street for […]