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

December 14, 2012

Today is the fifth anniversary of the slaughter of the innocents at Sandy Hook Elementary School. 20 children between the ages of 6 and seven years old were shot dead as well as six adults who tried to protect them. All because this country’s politicians believes there is nothing which can be done to prevent […]

FCC Just Repealed Net Neutrality

“The FCC voted 3-2 Thursday to repeal net neutrality rules, ending Obama-era regulations that prohibited Internet providers from blocking or slowing web content. Whereas all Internet traffic previously shared same ‘lane,’ it can now be split among different lanes with different speeds. Those differing speeds could hurt telemedicine since it requires a ‘pretty robust connection,’ […]

Republicans Reject the NFL, the CIA and the FBI

(Dan here…Lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts) Sunday, December 03, 2017 Republicans Reject the NFL, the CIA and the FBI I forget who said she never expected that, after the national divorce, liberals would get custody of the NFL. But it’s beyond that. Now Republicans reject the CIA and the FBI too. Donald Trump sometimes sounds […]

The Ugly Picture of US Wage Growth

by Hale Stewart (originally published at Bonddadd blog) The Ugly Picture of US Wage Growth The chart above shows the Y/Y percentage change in the average hourly earnings of nonsupervisory employees.  We can break this data down into two sections.  Due to higher inflation and stronger unions, the pace of growth was far stronger before […]

The Utterly Terrible GOP Tax “Reform” Scam

The Utterly Terrible GOP Tax “Reform” Scam The Republicans in the House and Senate continue on their downhill rush to pass their so-called “tax reform” plan before the holiday break.  It’s a mad rush to nowhere, a corrupt process of “please the oligarch” that will cause a huge deficit increase (on the scale of $1 […]

October JOLTS report: a good post-hurricane rebound

October JOLTS report: a good post-hurricane rebound The August and September hurricanes continue to make their impacts felt in the economic data.  Yesterday’s JOLTS report for October, like the October and November jobs reports, shows a rebound from those impacts.  The best way to look at the data is to average the last two months […]

The wage – debt deflation dynamic and the next recession

 The wage – debt deflation dynamic and the next recession One of the important dynamics why recessions end is that inflation decelerates more than wage growth. Thus, for the 90% or so of people who still have jobs, there are some compelling bargains, enough to jumpstart more spending. That all gets short-circuited if wages actually […]

Sharing the wealth

Via the International Monetary Fund: Income inequality among people around the world has been declining in recent decades. But the news is not all good. Inequality within many countries has increased, particularly in advanced economies. In addition to income inequality, wealth inequality—what you have accumulated, as opposed to what you earn—is closely related, and reflects differences in […]