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

Volkswagen’s Bumpy Road to New Technology

Just like American companies, Volkswagen made the jump to EVs the technology of which is still being developed and just before the pandemic. Of course, the pandemic created an economic desert where people cut buying anything other than essentials. Fewer vehicles sold leads to an abundance of uncovered costs and debt. Can’t reduce the costs […]

More on the ACA Insurance Fraud Scheme

Been lucky to have Andrew Sprung of xpostfactoid writing on the topic of perpetrators conceiving, executing, and expanding their carefully planned scheme of large-scale unauthorized plan-switching amongst ACA healthcare insurance subscribers. In the end, people switched over to other plans get lesser healthcare insurance than what they had signed up for initially with a different […]

FTC and grocery giants debate who real competitors are

More on the FTC investigating Albertsons and Kroger as to whether they are truly competitors. The issue being how much of the market-controlled now by each and what would result after Kroger acquires Albertsons. Both the FTC and Unions argue “FTC argues different stores have different use cases. FTC lead attorney Susan Musser noted “you […]

Labor Market Conditions – Sahm

Yes, I get occasional commentaries from this substack. No, I am not going to post it all here. Follow the link after you read what I did post of Claudia Sahm’s here. Labor market conditions. – by Claudia Sahm Tomorrow (9/6) is the jobs report for August 2024. There is intense attention for any clues […]

August jobs report: for the first time, including revisions, more consistent with a hard landing

 – by New Deal democrat My focus continues to be on whether jobs gains are most consistent with a “soft landing,” i.e., no further deterioration, or whether there is further decline towards a recession.  For a change, this month the Establishment report was the weakest in several years, if still positive. Meanwhile the Household report rebounded […]

Strikes start at top hotel chains as housekeepers seek higher wages and daily room cleaning work

CNBC The plight of hotel workers in cleaning up after residents who stay for a few days and leave the room in a wreck. The pay id the minimum that can be made. The hazards are such a worker can become readily sick. from exposure. I am sure the pandemic caused issues. Plus, people do […]

Albertsons’ CEO claims text deletions weren’t intentional, concedes 1700+ may be gone

Last week CEO Vivek claimed most of his text messages were automatically deleted. Also and previously investigators were show messages going back and forth between players in this issue. Investigators asked those messages be kept. Apparently, those too have disappeared or portions of them have. It appears Albertsons has been milked by private entities Cerberus […]