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

Just Some More Interesting News

‘Cut the Bullsh*t‘ and Tax Rich People Like Us, Common Dreams, Kenny Stancil Monday is Tax Day in the United States this year and the Patriotic Millionaires—rich Americans who advocate for greater redistribution of wealth and power to working people in the U.S.—are using the occasion to launch “an offensive” against the “selfish billionaires, Wall […]

April housing permits and starts: a pullback from peak, but no recessionary signal UPDATED

April housing permits and starts: a pullback from peak, but no recessionary signal UPDATED The monthly statistics on housing permits and starts, reported this morning, were mixed, as permits increased slightly and starts declined: The less volatile single-family permits also declined slightly.

Grading the U.S. response to the pandemic

How should we grade our collective response to the covid pandemic?  What lessons should we draw for the future?  I believe that our response was poor.  To see why, just imagine where we would be today if effective vaccines had not been developed.  Our current strategy of moderate social distancing, intermittent partial lockdowns, and economic […]

New dashboard on the PRC Advisory Opinion on the change in service standards

Steve Hutkins from Save the Post Office. As you can see, postal service delivery would lengthen from a maximum of 3 – day delivery to 4 and 5-day delivery service for First Class mail and Periodicals. The impact of the changes in delivery would would slow approximately 20.7 billion pieces of First Class Mail, or […]

Coronavirus dashboard: entering the home stretch?

Coronavirus dashboard: entering the home stretch? G*d willing, I will only feel the need to update this information for another month or two. The US is simply making great progress on all fronts, and there are no new outbreaks in any of the States. Close to 40% of the entire US population is totally vaccinated, […]

Equi-realism about carbon pricing and other approaches to global warming favors a failsafe approach to regulation

Unfortunately, carbon pricing does not seem to be on the agenda of either the Biden administration or progressive advocates of an aggressive policy response to climate change.  In part this neglect reflects ideological bias against market-based approaches to regulation and in favor of methods that are more direct in their effects.  But it also reflects […]

The Public Reappearance Of The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The Public Reappearance Of The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict  Sigh, so much that is so obvious, and so much that is not, but so much that is so sad, especially as there seems to be little real prospect of any serious improvement or settlement on the underlying issues.  Indeed, it is probably the case we did not […]

Population and the Economy

Hear that China is in trouble with an aging, decreasing population. Headline says that California is in trouble; decreasing population for the first time ever. Years ago now, we heard that Japan was in trouble with an aging, decreasing population. Japan’s doing fine, thank you. And, China and California will both be better off for […]