ACA Signups blog and healthcare author, Charles Gaba does a rewrite of an earlier commentary at his site. If you missed it, Angry Bear blog featured “33 Months of COVID In One Image” also. Recently, this writeup’s stats was used by Prof. Paul Krugman in his recent NYT article, “Will 2024 Be a Vaccine Election?” […]
AB writer, commenter and Social Security expert, Dale Coberly provides a different take on whether “President Biden Should Direct the Social Security Administration to Stop Penalizing Marriage.” ~~~~~~~~ Nancy Altman wrote the following piece, which appeared in PROGRESS AMERICA, on December 16, 2022 as well as Common Dreams. I thought it needed a response because […]
What Is The Bielefeld School Of Economics? by Barkley Rosser @ Econospeak This piece is about a paper I have just written for a special issue to appear in a journal I used to edit about the late economist, Peter Flaschal. Who most of you are probably thinking, although maybe not all of you? He […]
The status of the coincident indicators – by New Deal democrat In addition to real GDP, which is only updated quarterly and with a lag, the NBER has indicated that it relies upon four other datapoints in determining the onset month of a recession: payrolls, industrial production, real income less transfer payments, and real manufacturing, wholesale, […]
The Political Economy of Effective Altruism by Peter Dorman @ EconoSpeak Back in the day, I used to give talks on child labor. I would always begin by saying that boycotts and shaming of corporations, while understandable as an emotional response, were unlikely to do much for the world’s children. This was because very little […]
November real retail sales turn down, return to negative YoY – by New Deal democrat Real retail sales is one of my favorite indicators for both the current economy and the jobs situation 3 to 6 months ahead. This morning nominal retail sales for November were reported down -0.6%, which only takes back about 1/2 […]
In a recent post, Matt Yglesias argues for using fiscal policy – tax increases or benefits cuts – to control inflation, rather than relying on interest rate hikes. There is certainly an argument to be made here, but his suggestions for reducing consumption seem less than ideal. Yglesias floats the idea of limiting Social Security […]
Real average and aggregate non-managerial wages for November – by New Deal democrat With November’s consumer inflation report in the books, let’s update two of my favorite measures of how the working/middle class is doing – real average non-supervisory wages, and real aggregate payrolls. Nominal average wages for non-supervisory workers rose a strong 0.7% in […]
Mark Weisbrot of CEPR had an article up in the November LA Times addressing Inflation and the Fed. It appears it may be reprinted in December’s LA Times. “Weisbrot (LA Times): Inflation is Falling Much Faster Than Most People Know; and The Fed’s Response to Inflation May Pose a Bigger Threat than the Inflation Itself.” […]
I am not the only one who sees issues with the way railroad workers are on call 24/7 with any time off being canceled or workers being subject to penalization if missing the call. Biden could have pushed harder to resolve this labor issue. Just like siding with financial issues, Jow Biden sided with Railroad […]