From the lowest common denominator down The unbound political ambition we see in the likes of Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Nikki Haley, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, …, reminds those of us old enough to remember of Richard Nixon. It was but a small step from Nixon’s whatever it takes ambition-driven politics to appealing to the […]
by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for January 25 – 29 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. After many weeks of stability, there is some turmoil – in opposing directions – among the short leading indicators in particular. It is an indication of the bifurcated nature of the economy at […]
Is China Now Number One? Actually I think focusing on such questions can be a not very useful exercise, but here I am asking it anyway. As it is, indeed the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) is indeed Number One on a number of important grounds, although probably the bottom line is that the world […]
Some Information Both Dan and I have been waylaid by Medical issues. Both of us are slowly coming out of what plagues us. We both are a little bit slow in responding. Eric had Covid and is better now. Dan did talk to the site people who run the servers and also program our capabilities […]
Real personal spending declines in December, while income rises; not quite enough to start a “double-dip” recession This morning’s report on personal income and spending for December reversed the pattern we have seen all during the second half of 2020. After rebounding strongly for 6 months, real personal spending (blue in the graph below) declined […]
First, I want to discuss the evidence on effectiveness of the first dose of the BioNTech Pfizer Covid 19 vaccine. The data from few person – weeks of the phase III trial suggested that one dose was highly effective after 10 days. This is based on 4 of roughly 40 cases in vaccinated participants. Much […]
Read: When does democracy morph into mobocracy? Read: A critique of gentrification that misunderstands the commons and property rights Read: Most economies are in a “K-shaped” recovery in which the rich get richer and the poor poorer and more on how everyone is better off on average but the poor are not average. Interesting stuff
The reliably brilliant Catharine Rampell argues against giving $1400 to quite so many people. She notes The Democratic-controlled House passed legislation in December to expand stimulus payments to $2,000. This was marketed as aid to the poor and middle class, but the bill would have given some money to 94 percent of households — including those making over […]
Upward trend confirmed in new jobless claims On a unadjusted basis, new jobless claims declined by 101,498 to 873,966. Seasonally adjusted claims also declined by 67,000 to 847,000. The 4 week moving average, however, rose by 16,250 to 868,000. Since the 4 week average has risen above 850,000, and weekly claims were above 900,000 for […]