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

Coronavirus dashboard for October 9: everybody has to touch the hot stove at least once

Coronavirus dashboard for October 9: everybody has to touch the hot stove at least once   Total confirmed US infections: 7,605,218* Average infections last 7 days: 46,869 Total US deaths: 212,762 *Actual number is probably 5 to 7 million higher, or about 4% of the total US population Source: COVID Tracking Project In the last […]

USPS Update on Court Cases

Steve Hutkins at Save the Post Office Another federal court has ruled against the Postal Service. The United States Postal Service is now 0 for 6. In the case of Richardson v Trump, Judge Emmet Sullivan has ordered a preliminary injunction putting limits on postal operations in the run-up to the election. (Sullivan had also issued a preliminary injunction […]

August JOLTS report conforms to prior early recession recovery pattern

August JOLTS report conforms to prior early recession recovery pattern   Yesterday’s JOLTS report for August showed a jobs market that is still just beginning to mend. Hires were up, and layoffs and discharges were down, which is good, but job openings and voluntary quits both declined. We are far enough along past the worst […]

“Dying In A Leaderless Vacuum”, NEJM

“The New England Journal of Medicine Breaks two centuries of precedent to take an electoral stand,” Medpage Today, Shannon Firth, October 9, 2020 Angry Bear Readers: I am stealing the NEJM’s title as it states all of the issues we are faced with today with the Covid Pandemic. “Dying in a Leaderless Vacuum.” The NEJM […]

Jobless claims: yet another week of glacial progress

Jobless claims: yet another week of glacial progress   Today marked yet another week of glacial progress in initial jobless claims, at levels worse than the worst weekly levels of the Great Recession. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, new jobless claims rose by 5,312 to 804,307. After seasonal adjustment (which is far less important than […]

Voting in a Time of Covid: A Question about Judicial “Originalism”

Voting in a Time of Covid: A Question about Judicial “Originalism” The originalist theory of legal interpretation holds that judges, in reviewing the implementation of a statute, should be guided by the “plain meaning” of its language at the time it was adopted.  This is in opposition to the notion of a “living law”, whose […]