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

Biden Promises to Help Fix the Student Loan Crisis

There are those who always raise the issue of “I paid for mine, you pay for yours. I know of no other debt created by borrowing money where the penalty is a life time of servitude and the means of retirement in Social Security is also attached too. Principal remains untouched and whatever money paid […]

Coronavirus dashboard for January 25: a vaccination race against time vs. the new mutations

Coronavirus dashboard for January 25: a vaccination race against time vs. the new mutations  All of the significant economic data is backloaded this week, onto Thursday and Friday. So don’t be surprised if I take a day off between now and then.In the meantime, here is a Coronavirus update. First things first: the most ominous […]

The Oregon Republican Party Issues a Condemnation

The Oregon Republican Party Issues a Condemnation  You have to read it to believe it.  An excerpt: Whereas history tells us that after George Washington appointed Major General Benedict Arnold to command West Point, Arnold conspired to surrender the fort to the British; and Whereas the ten Republican House members, by voting to impeach President Trump, repeated history by […]

Senate Trump Committee

If ever there was a time for a Senate, and a House, Investigative Committee on anything, it’s now. The Nation needs, the world is waiting, history is begging, for such. This Nation, the world, wants and needs to know, to understand, what happened, how did it happen, and what should be done to prevent its […]

What is to be done with the Senate ?

What are we going to do about Mitch McConnell and his enabler Jim Manchin ? McConnell is blocking the establishment of committees for the 117th Senate. This means that the committees with Republican Chairs and Republican majorities will exist and operate in the Senate with a Democratic majority. He demands that Democrats promise not to […]

Desirable incentive effects of income taxation V

Fifth and last. Not relevant to the USA. Back in the day when US unions weren’t totally feeble, MacDonald and Solow wrote a brilliant paper on collective bargaining and tax based incomes policy. Imagine a world in which firms must negotiation with unions (for example imagine Europe). The unions have two aims — they want […]

The Less Than Supreme Court

How Recent Supreme Court Decisions Have Damaged Both the Court and the Constitution There’s a pattern: In November of 2000, immediately following the very close, highly contested, presidential contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore, John Roberts, a lawyer in private practice who had clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist, rushed to Florida to be […]

A detailed, updated look at the housing market

A detailed, updated look at the housing market Existing home sales for December were reported this morning at 6.76 million annualized, just below the October 10 Year+ high of 6.86 million. Although existing home sales are about 90% of the entire housing market, they are less important economically than new housing construction, which has multiplier […]