The 2020 Presidential and Senate polling nowcast: partisan positions continue to harden Here is my weekly update on the 2020 elections, based on State rather than national polling in the past 30 days, since that directly reflects what is likely to happen in the Electoral College. Remember that polls are really only nowcasts, not […]
Whining About Lack Of Academic Leadership At my so-called university named for the fourth president, the slave-owning “Father of the Constitution.” No, I am not going to talk about the racism issue, which there is some effort to deal with on campus, notably in renaming three buildings named for Confederate figures, with our Provost originally […]
In 1968, when Richard Nixon called for Law and Order, a term used by Goldwater in 1964 and Reagan in 1966, he was appealing to working-class voters who would normally be expected to vote Democratic but were becoming more and more uneasy about a perceived increase in crime and frequent stories of protests in the […]
Housing roars back As I wrote yesterday, the background longer term fundamental factors for the economy, most importantly all-time low interest rates, are very positive. In particular I wrote, this “has already made an impact on the housing market…Lower mortgage rates cause more people to buy houses. Housing permits have already made back about half of […]
Coronavirus dashboard for August 19: a regional look at infections; the Deep South remains almost totally out of control Total US cases: 5,457,824 Average last 7 days: 48,764 Total US deaths: 163,595 Average last 7 days: 1,048 Source: COVID Tracking Project My overall thesis is that under the present leadership the US as a whole […]
Lifted from comments, reader likbez alerts us to this issue: In the meantime happening live in the USA but hardly on this blog… https://www.popsci.com/story/environment/why-us-lose-power-storms/ US has more power outages than any other !!! developed country. Our grid is outdated and rundown, but utilities aren’t willing to do much about it… oops (Generator-Industries bribes, lol […]
Initial claims mixed, while continuing claims continue “less awful” pandemic recovery trend While this morning’s initial jobless claims increased from last week, they were better than any other readings since the pandemic started. Continuing claims had their “least worst” week yet. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, new jobless claims rose by 52,776 to 891,510, […]
The UAE-Israel Deal Several days ago the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel have agreed to have diplomatic relations, with this being the third Arab nation to officially recognize Israel, following Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. President Trump and his supporters are claiming that this is a great breakthrough to world peace, with […]
Why, in the face of the worst US economy since the Great Depression, is the stock market near record highs? As I type this, the S&P 500 is close to setting an all-time record. Last week it came within 0.2% of doing so: All of this in the face of the worst quarterly decline in […]