To say that the Republican Party since Nixon had pandered to the lowest common denominator isn’t quite accurate, is it? Probably because the term is derived from the arithmetical least common denominator which makes one think of a unique number. Perhaps lowest common denominator was a more polite way of saying that the Republican Party […]

Almost everything wrong with the libertarian approach to covid policy has been on display at the Brownstone Institute recently:  misrepresentation of facts, misdirection, revisionist history.  The bad faith is almost beyond belief, except, well, it’s exactly what we have come to expect from the fine libertarians at Brownstone.  The 6 essays I discuss here were […]

First data releases of 2022 confirm manufacturing strength, construction slowdown The first December data, the forward-looking ISM manufacturing report, has been released. Yesterday construction spending for November was also released. Let’s take a look at both. The ISM index, especially its new orders subindex, is an important short leading indicator for the production sector. In […]

Oil prices rose 55% in 2021, the most since 2009, while natural gas prices rose 47%, the most since 2016, Focus on Fracking, RJS Oil prices rose for a second week after the initial Omicron selloff, as oil traders and most everyone else have become convinced that Omicron poses little risk to oil demand . […]

Opinion Piece this morning comes from retired U.S. Army General Steven Anderson, CBS News I do not necessarily put-up military commentary. This brigadier general appears to have his “stuff” together on the topic. It is a good read. Forty-three years ago, I swore an oath to protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. […]

Grading my 2021 forecasts Critical self-examination is, or at least ought to be, part of the process of making forecasts. After all, how can you learn if you don’t see how earlier hypotheses panned out? As I have usually done, let’s take a look back at how I forecast 2021 was going to look, to […]

RJS, MarketWatch 666, October’s Case–Shiller HPI; Advance Economic Indicators for November With the major month end reports already released last week, the only widely watched report released this week was the Case-Shiller Home Price Index for October from S&P Case-Shiller, which doesn’t even report any prices of homes, but just a index generated by averaging relative sales prices […]

Prof. Joel Eissenberg, Upfront Blog For Christmas 2021, Linda gave me a copy of “The St. Louis Commune of 1877: Communism in the Heartland” by Mark Kruger. The title certainly grabbed my attention. Having read it, there’s somewhat less than meets the eye here. The reason I never heard of this before is that the […]

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for December 27 – 31 at Seeking Alpha The last edition of Weekly Indicators for 2021 is up at Seeking Alpha. I have been watching restaurant reservations for the first signs of the economic impact of Omicron. Well . . . . Additionally, interest rates are hitting an important milestone […]