One of the biggest design flaws in the ACA is that subsidies for low-income families buying policies on insurance exchanges were too low. Congress raised the subsidies temporarily, but now they are set to expire right before the November election. From Huffpo: Health insurance premiums for millions of Americans will spike if Congress doesn’t act in the […]
Adjudged to be AFFIRMED. Barrett, J., delivered the (her first?) opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh, JJ., joined. Gorsuch, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Hmmm. Fill out an application for a driver’s license, make a mistake, by ticking the wrong […]
Writing in The Atlantic in May 2021, Hoeg, Prasad, and Ghandi argued that the United States should delay vaccinating children against COVID-19 until vulnerable adults are vaccinated in poorer countries around the world. A similar argument could now be made for delaying boosters, at least for people who are not at high risk. An unvaccinated […]
Real retail sales signal further expansion, but also continue to suggest slower payrolls growth ahead Nominal retail sales for the month of April were up 0.9%, and previous months were revised higher. That means that, after inflation, real retail sales for April were up 0.6%, a very positive number. Yesterday I wrote that, rather than […]
What Is The Worst Part Of The Current Inflation In the US we may have seen the peak of overall inflation, with the annualized CPI rate increasing at 8.3% in April, down from 8.5% in March, the highest rate of increase in 40 years. The issue has become the reported top concern of the US […]
Will tomorrow’s real retail sales report forecast a recession, or just a continued slowdown? No economic data today (May 16) of significance; but tomorrow one of my favorite economic indicators, retail sales, will be reported for April. Since real retail sales lead employment and generally are a short leading indicator for the economy as a […]
RJS: Focus on Fracking Summary: Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a 21 year low, distillates supplies at a 17 year low; 300,000 bpd global oil surplus in April, despite loss of 1.2 million bpd from Russia & Kazakhstan; natural gas rigs at a 32 month high.. OPEC’s Report on Global Oil for April Thursday of […]
RJS, MarketWatch 666 Summary: Producer Prices Rose 0.5% in April; Record Annual Increase of 16.3% for Final Demand for Goods The seasonally adjusted Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand rose 0.5% in April, as average prices for finished wholesale goods rose by 1.3% while final demand for services was unchanged . . . that increase followed […]
Harvest season has sprung upon us in a hurry. We had to spend a few evenings in the fields collecting squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and even dug up all of the potatoes, among the multitude of other things we planted this spring and continue to plant. It’s been a busy few weeks that have been hard […]