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

Listicle

The passing of Jim Watson, co-discoverer of DNA structure, got me thinking about the other great discoveries of the 20th century. Without consulting Google AI, I came up with these: General relativityPlate tectonicsABO histocompatibility blood typesPenicillinStructure of DNA Here’s what Google AI said: “ . . . the discovery of penicillin and other antibiotics, the […]

Reflecting Reality

If you are in management, typically you will not know everything going on in a department. You may have to ask for clarification. You don’t panic and you do have to answer a comment or a question. Trump could not answer or rebut the reporter’s easy to answer question or remark. When you do not […]

Long leading indicator Senior Loan Officer Survey for Q3 was neutral to slightly positive

– by New Deal democrat The Senior Loan Officer Survey is a long leading indicator, telling us about credit conditions that typically turn worse a year or more before the economy turns down, and improve just at the economy is ready to turn up. Fortunately, since it is reported by the Federal Reserve, it is unaffected […]

Voters Are Starting to React

Reacting to a runaway, incompetent president, and a rogue political party backing him; people decided a different path to take. This occurred in California, New Jersey, Georgia, New York, Virginia, Maine, and Colorado. Mayors and Governors were on the ballot as well lunch programs. The present, some history, and how to turn the table. “What […]

Jury rejects border patrol BS

In the annals of Trump administration whining, the outrage over a protester flinging a wrapped sandwich at a border patrol officer must surely rank as among the silliest and most childish. “Jurors showed no appetite for the Justice Department’s case against “sandwich guy,” the D.C. resident who chucked a Subway sandwich at the chest of […]

Jim Watson RIP

I see where Jim Watson, famed for the Watson-Crick double helix structure of DNA, has died. Watson was certainly very smart by conventional metrics. He entered the University of Chicago on a scholarship at 15, graduated at 19 and earned a PhD in zoology at Indiana University three years later. He and Crick published the […]

ISM services index rebounds, indicating moderate expansion, but with “stagflation”

– by New Deal democrat With the shutdown of the official government sources, along with the regional Fed indexes, the ISM manufacturing and services indexes have become especially important. To recap, because of manufacturing’s diminished importance to the general economy, the services index has become significantly more important. For forecasting purposes, I assign a 75% weight […]

“Rising Productivity in Manufacturing Reduces the Need for Industrial Workers

Such has been going on for decades. Some history on how much of this evolved historically on the planning side. Equipment efficiencies made planning easier and decreased costs. I started to work in industry late seventies and did so until 2020-something. Fresh out of the service in 71, three years to gain a math-driven BA […]

Inequality Researcher David Splinter Really Doesn’t Like (or Understand) Haig-Simons Income

– by Steve Roth Originally posted at Wealth Economics Economists have widely ignored it, even while dubbing it the “preferred” measure of income. “The greatest trick capital-gainsincome ever managed was convincingthe world that it doesn’t exist.”—Carlos Mucha (inventor of the Platinum Coin) This post draws on a far lengthier and more detailed paper — including support for […]

Gunboat diplomacy

The US has a long and sordid history of military extortion. The latest example is Trump’s saber-rattling movement of Navy battle groups off the coast of Venezuela and the extrajudicial assassinations the administration has been conducting off the Venezuelan coast in the name of drug interdiction.* Writing for the Boston Globe, Stephen Kinzer, a senior […]