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

DOGE is shooting blanks

This appears to be a new and unfamiliar use of the word “efficiency”: “The Department of Government Efficiency run by Elon Musk last week published an initial list of 1,125 contracts that it terminated in recent weeks across the federal government. Data published on DOGE’s “Wall of Receipts” shows that more than one-third of the […]

Percentage of Public School Funding Coming from the Feds

The question? How much Federal Public School Funding comes from the Feds? The answer is here and you have to read it for yourself. Not a lot of reading to stymie you. Not terribly difficult. Not even 30 minutes of reading. The first question that comes to my mind? What would happen to schools if […]

Employment was Considerably Weaker than We Thought Last Year

Q3 2024 QCEW suggests employment was considerably weaker than we thought last year – by New Deal democrat This will be income, spending, and housing week, but that won’t start until tomorrow. While there’s no news today, there was an important update to employment data last week; namely, the QCEW for Q3 of last year. […]

A Change in Attitude after the November Election

God has a plan and Congress does not. November 2024 and the election is over. Rep. Mark Alford, a Lake Winnebago Republican, won a second term in Congress Tuesday, gliding to an easy election win in Missouri’s heavily conservative 4th Congressional District. The Associated Press called the race for Alford at 9:24 p.m. At the […]

Existing home sales: trends of increasing prices, increasing inventory, and flat sales all continue

 – by New Deal democrat Existing home sales have been flat in the general range of 3.85 -4.10 million annualized for two years, and that continued in January, as on a monthly basis sales decreased -4.9% to 40.8 million from an upwardly revised December number of 4.29 million annualized: The slightly better numbers in the […]

DOGE hates vets

“One point about the Musk firing spree that was barely getting any attention at first is now starting to break through into mainstream media accounts: veterans are hugely overrepresented among federal civil servants, and even more so among probationary employees. They’re getting hit hard by these erratic and needless firings.” So vets are DEI hires? […]

Annals of “government efficiency”

“Donald Trump plans a $200 million anti-immigrant ad campaign in the US and overseas. . . .Apparently we can’t afford to fully fund medical research at CDC or NIH these days, but we can find a few dollars under the sofa cushions to thank President Trump for closing the border.” We can’t afford Medicaid for […]

Democratic Policy Without Ideology is just Random Activity

Regarding my commentary on the need for ideology, maybe this will help clarify my position. Ideological Purge: DOGE’s Federal Layoffs Especially Target Agencies Perceived as Liberal Two responses to my discussion questioned what are the policies positions. There were specific issues of concern presented. I was not addressing specific policy at all. That these questions […]