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

Index of leading indicators says recession almost certain; so what of the coincident indicators?

Index of leading indicators says recession almost certain; so what of the coincident indicators? – by New Deal democrat This week is one of those where almost all of the important data is crammed into one day – in this case, Thursday, when Q4 GDP, initial claims, real manufacturng and trade sales, durable goods orders, […]

Extending Capital to Nature, Reducing Nature to Capital

Extending Capital to Nature, Reducing Nature to Capital The Biden administration has announced it is inaugurating a program to incorporate the value of natural resources and ecological services into national income accounts.  The New York Times article reporting this development predictably portrays the response as divided between two camps: on the one side are environmentalists, who think […]

Jury Findings for the January 6 Insurrectionists

I am waiting to see what the courts dish out for the insurrectionists who thought it was kind-of-“kool” to attack the Senate and House while in session certifying the 2020 presidential election vote. The insurrectionist sitting at Nancy Pelosi’s desk was sentenced last week. He claimed he was looking for a bathroom. So far, I […]

ChatGPT goes to Wharton

Can ChatGPT run a business?  Color me very skeptical. This is a shockingly easy question, but I would not have predicted that ChatGPT would get it right, given its limited ability to do math and think logically.  So, I am updating my assessment of ChatGPT (slightly) in a favorable direction. Still, before we get too […]

How “FHFA-CPI” using house prices rather than OER shows a sharp deceleration in inflation

How “FHFA-CPI” using house prices rather than OER shows a sharp deceleration in inflation  – by New Deal democrat Paul Krugman made another foray into the “inflation is mostly gone” genre over the weekend with a thread on Mastodon that largely relied on the following graph: concluding that “[A]t this point the burden of proof lies on […]

Changing the Student Loan System

Recently, The American Prospect‘s David Dayen’s introduced us to a new student loan system. A new program implemented for income driven based repayments (IDR). It requires lesser payback amounts and shorter a time period than the of 25 years to pay back. Unfortunately, a person would still be in their mid-forties if everything works out […]

New Deal democrat’s weekly indicators for January 16 – 20

Weekly Indicators for January 16 – 20 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat I forgot to post this yesterday, so here you go today . . .  My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. Every now and then you get a contratrend week, when a bunch of metrics move in the opposite direction […]

Two basic problems of a declining population in a Country

From the NYT opinion pages comes Paul Krugman’s description of the two basic problems of a declining population in a country, Dr. Krugman ues China as an example. China’s population declined last year, for the first time since the mass deaths associated with Mao Zedong’s disastrous Great Leap Forward in the 1960s. Or maybe it […]

Tomorrow, January 22, is the fiftieth anniversary of the Right to Decide

A bit of history as reviewed on a “woman’s right to decide,” by Professor Heather, “Letters from an American.” Tomorrow marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court decided that for the first trimester of a pregnancy, “the attending physician, in consultation with his patient, is free to […]