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

Global Health and Climate Change

“9 local story ideas from the 2024 Lancet Countdown report on climate change and health” – by Naseem S. Miller The Journal’s Resource Health threats from climate change are reaching record-breaking levels, affecting people in every country, according to the eighth annual Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change report, which provides an up-to-date assessment of […]

Roberts court silver lining

The antiregulation bias of the Supreme Court was loudly signaled with the overturn of Chevron deference. Now, the SCOTUS has arrogated to itself the interpretation of technical details for regulation of things they are all incompetent to assess: ““Since Chevron has fallen, agencies are much more cautious in putting forward rules and regulations,” Ramachandran said. […]

Trust in the Justice System is Indeed Damaged

But not in the way Mikie Johnson believes. “House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Monday slammed President Biden for his decision to pardon his son Hunter, calling the move an abuse of the justice system.   Johnson rips Hunter Biden pardon, saying trust in justice system damaged, The Hill ‘President Biden insisted many times he would never pardon his […]

The Hegseth dysfunction

It seems that Hegseth may be forced to end his bid for Secretary of Defense due to his alcoholism and history of sexual abuse and mismanagement of nonprofits.  On one level this is as it should be.  I could probably live with Hegseth if he was well qualified for the job but got quietly soused […]

Chinese firms going global

A brief coming out of China reporting as to what they see as to their issues in growing their international trade. It is a different perspective in what they see as compared to what we see. When I was overseas for weeks at a time, I would pick up a local paper to get those […]

Knocking Back The UV 

Joel C. Eissenberg and Michael D. Eissenberg Institute for Thanksgiving Weekend’s Intriguing Standardized Tests (ITWIST) Evergreen, Colorado 80439 Abstract Ultraviolet (UV) light is a form of ionizing radiation prevalent on earth during daylight hours. UV light exposure in humans is a risk factor for skin cancer and cataracts. Accordingly, there has been considerable interest in […]

“strong demand, no question . . . “

Strong demand because people had money to spend when they would have had nothing if the ARP was not put into play. By the same token, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was targeting the upper 1% of the taxpayers with the next 4% tagging along. It in itself was ~$2 trillion much of which […]

ISM manufacturing remains weak, while construction spending continues to power along

 – by New Deal democrat As usual, the month’s data begins with the ISM manufacturing index, and with a one month delay, construction spending. Because manufacturing is of diminishing importance to the economy, and was in deep contraction both in 2015-16 and again in 2022 without any recession occurring, I now use an economically weighted three […]

Fisking the anti-vaxxers

Over at jabberwocking.com, Kevin Drum has a systematic take-down of the anti-vaxxer propaganda on COVID19: • The reason the CDC initially recommended against wearing masks was because they thought you could just avoid people who were sick, so it was best to reserve limited supplies for doctors, who couldn’t avoid sick people. When researchers discovered […]