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New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators for September 25 – 29

NewDealdemocrat | October 1, 2023 6:30 am

Hot Topics

US Economics

Weekly Indicators for September 25 – 29 at Seeking Alpha

– by New Deal democrat

My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.

Interest rates continued to head higher, with mortgage rates briefly going over 7.5%. With the long leading indicators having worsened, With the decline in commodity (including gas) prices over, I am looking for evidence that the short leading indicators are also beginning to turn lower.

As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment as to the state of the economy, and reward me a little for my efforts in organizing the data.

New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators September 18 – 22 2023, Angry Bear, New Deal democrat

7 Comments

Fred C. Dobbs says:

October 2, 2023 at 10:58 pm

Well, it’s a Hot Topic …

Matt Gaetz is making his move against Kevin McCarthy
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  October 2, 2023 at 11:11 pm
  
  Gaetz Moves to Oust McCarthy
  
  NY Times – Oct 2 – 8:51 pm
  
  Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida moved on Monday to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his post in an act of vengeance that posed the clearest threat yet to Mr. McCarthy’s tenure and could plunge the House into chaos.
  
  After days of warnings, Mr. Gaetz rose on Monday evening to bring up a resolution declaring the speakership vacant. That started a process that would force a vote within days on whether to keep Mr. McCarthy in his post. In doing so, Mr. Gaetz sought to subject Mr. McCarthy to a rare form of political punishment experienced by only two other speakers in the history of the House of Representatives. …
  
  Democrats Weigh Whether to Rescue McCarthy From G.O.P. Ouster Bid
  
  NY Times – Oct 2 – 9:13 pm
  
  … Multiple Democrats said that they expected to take a unified position on the fate of the speaker, and that they would meet Tuesday morning to begin the process of determining what they would do.
  
  “Let’s see what happens,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, a former party leader who has had a working relationship with Mr. McCarthy in the past.
  
  Democratic officials said that, absent some sort of tangible and enforceable concession from Mr. McCarthy that benefited them, they could not envision a sufficient number backing him to offset Republican defections.
  
  “I am one Democrat not in much of a mood to help him out,” said Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland. “MAGA Republicans have to solve the problems that MAGA Republicans create.” …
  - Fred C. Dobbs says:
    
    October 4, 2023 at 12:21 am
    
    Sort of a weird vote, given the vote that put McCarthy in the Speakership in the first place.
    
    8 GOP representatives voted to oust him. So did all 208 Dems, who generally never vote for a Speaker of the other party. 210 GOP reps voted to keep in office. That of course was not enuf, but it’s like the 8 had their way.
    
    And the House is now to be run by a Speaker of the House Pro Tempore, a McCarthy acolyte who is allowed to handle only ‘housekeeping’ duties, so to speak. Until such time as the GOP gets around to finding someone who suits their proclivities.
    
    The temporary guy is one with a ‘great political name’, says the Orange One. Rep Patrick McHenry of NC. Trump may be aluding to Patrick Henry who said some very Trumpy words back in the day.
    
    Does pro tempore appear in the Constitution?
    
    The Constitution instructs the Senate to choose a president pro tempore to preside over the Senate in the absence of the vice president. Pro tempore is a Latin term meaning “for the time being,” signaling that the position was originally conceived as a temporary replacement.
    - Fred C. Dobbs says:
      
      October 4, 2023 at 9:25 am
      
      So, there is no mention of a ‘Speaker Pro Tempore’ in the Constitution.
      
      Now we have one.
      - Fred C. Dobbs says:
        
        October 4, 2023 at 11:41 pm
        
        The explanation of ‘Speaker pro tem’ appears in the House Rules documentation.
        
        Also, Nancy Pelosi & Steny Hoyer have been evicted from their special ‘hideaway’ offices at the request of Kevin McCarthy who is angry, along with his allies, that Dems did not come to his aid to provide the few votes that would have been required for him to keep his office.
        
        Pelosi Is Evicted From Bonus Office – NY Times – Oct 4
        
        Representative Nancy Pelosi had been given a “hideaway” office suite as a courtesy — one that was rescinded after she did nothing to help Representative Kevin McCarthy.
      - Fred C. Dobbs says:
        
        October 4, 2023 at 11:54 pm
        
        Hmmm. A few of those ‘mainstream’ GOP representatives could have quite easily kept Kevin McCarthy in office. Apparently they were too scared to do so, as they would have incurred the wrath of their colleagues no doubt.
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  October 3, 2023 at 7:46 am
  
  A great story about awarding the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the development of mRNA vaccines.
  
  Nobel Prize Awarded to Covid Vaccine Pioneers
  
  NY Times – Oct 2
  
  Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, who together identified a chemical tweak to messenger RNA, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday. Their work enabled potent Covid vaccines to be made in less than a year, averting tens of millions of deaths and helping the world recover from the worst pandemic in a century.
  
  The approach to mRNA the two researchers developed has been used in Covid shots that have since been administered billions of times globally and has transformed vaccine technology, laying the foundation for inoculations that may one day protect against a number of deadly diseases like cancer. …
  
  … Dr. Karikó, the daughter of a butcher who had come to the United States from Hungary two decades earlier when her research program there ran out of money, was preoccupied by mRNA, which provides instructions to cells to make proteins. Defying the decades-old orthodoxy that mRNA was clinically unusable, she believed that it would spur medical innovations.
  
  At the time, Dr. Weissman was desperate for new approaches to a vaccine against H.I.V., which had long proved impossible to defend against. A physician and virologist who had tried and failed for years to develop a treatment for AIDS, he wondered if he and Dr. Karikó could team up to make an H.I.V. vaccine.
  
  It was a fringe idea that, when they began their research, seemed unlikely to work. The mRNA was delicate, so much so that when it was introduced to cells, the cells instantly destroyed it. Grant reviewers were not impressed. Dr. Weissman’s lab instead relied on seed money that the university gives new faculty members to get started.
  
  “We saw the potential and we weren’t willing to give up,” Dr. Weissman said. …
  
  She and Dr. Weissman had their first chance meeting over a copy machine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1998. …