By Steve Roth (originally published at Evonomics)t https://evonomics.com/how-redistribution-makes-america-richer/ You hear a lot about bottom-up and middle-out economics these days, as antidotes to a half-century of “trickle-down” theorizing and rhetoric. You’re even hearing it, prominently, from Joe Biden: They’re compelling ideas: put more wealth and income in the hands of millions, or hundreds of millions, and you’ll […]

March housing permits and starts – don’t get too excited Don’t get too excited about this morning’s big jump in housing starts for March. In the first place, it wasn’t confirmed in either total or single-family permits, which both remain down from December and January, and the latter of which is the least of all […]

Recently, in Windsor, Virginia, United States of America, a local police officer, Police Officer Gutierrez, pulled over Army Second Lieutenant Nazario; ostensibly for the lack of displayed license plate. As it was to turn out, a temporary plate was on display in the vehicle’s rear window. When Lt. Nazario slowly proceeded to a well lighted […]

Coronavirus dashboard for April 19: Much great progress, and some problem children   As an initial note, there is no significant economic data until Thursday this week, so don’t be surprised if I play hooky for a day or two…. Today let’s take a look at the latest coronavirus information. There’s much progress on the […]

When the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were first approved, it was clear that they were highly effective at preventing covid and that they would be in short supply for months.  The clinical trial data also suggested that, at least in the short-run, one dose of the vaccines would provide almost as much protection against covid […]

SCOTUS Is Making New Law in the Shadows April 15th, New York Times “Friday night’s injunction was at the 20th time since the court’s term began last October the justices have issued a shadow docket ruling altering the status quo. Which brings to question, the more substantive the work the justices carry out through such unusual, unsigned, and […]

Industrial production for March disappoints – but only on the surface As an initial note, retail sales for March blew out to the upside, but as expected due to cosnumers’ spending their latest pandemic stimulus checks. This does have implications for future jobs reports, but I will report on that tomorrow. But to the main […]

March consumer prices, retail sales, industrial production, & new home construction; February’s business inventories RJS at MarketWatch 666 Seasonally adjusted retail sales increased by 9.8% in March, the second largest jump on record, after retail sales for January and February were both revised higher…the Advance Retail Sales Report for March (pdf) from the Census Bureau estimated that our […]

Jobless claims break on through – 1M+ jobs report for April looks likely As I have said for the past few weeks, new jobless claims are likely to the most important weekly economic data for the next 3 to 6 months. With the number of those vaccinated continuing to increase, I have been expecting a […]

The interviewee says that blacks are disproportionately imprisoned in the United States; notes that though blacks only make up 13% of the general population, they make up 40% of the prison population. While it is quite likely that blacks are disproportionately imprisoned, it is what the interviewee didn’t say that begs asking. Why is it […]

Raffi Khatchadourian’s Ghost Walls {Surviving the Crackdown in Xinjiang ( As mass detentions and surveillance dominate the lives of China’s Uyghurs and Kazakhs, a woman struggles to free herself.)} is beyond Margaret Atwood dystopian. Ghost Walls gives a victim’s accounting of her own experiencing of China’s reaction to the cultural differences between the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, […]

 – by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for April 12 – 16 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The big call I made last year is that conditions were setting up for a Boom this year, once the pandemic started to be overcome. Well, almost half of all Americans have […]

Naked Capitalism had this commentary up on its site as introduced by Yves Smith. I made some small editorial changes to further emphasize the two points Yves makes in the beginning and also some of the commentary in the article. Both parts are good reads. To wit; If you are handcuffed and on the ground, […]

Washington Equitable: Tax evasion at the top of the U.S. income distribution and How To Fight it. There is another version of the issue starting off with Senior fellow (Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute), Steven M. Rosenthal taking on the issue; “If Congress Wants the IRS To Collect More Tax from The […]

From Treehuggers; “Spain To Try Nationwide 4-Day Workweek” A shorter workweek has been suggested s a means of improving work-life balance and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Freelance Writer, Olivia Rosane. The topics of a shorter work week and climate control was brought up by Sandwichman at Econospeak with the former being touted numerous times by […]

CPI Rose 0.6% in March on Higher Prices for Energy and Transportation Services, R.J.S, MarketWatch 666 The consumer price index rose 0.6% in March, the largest monthly increase since August 2012, as higher prices for fuel, utilities, transportation services, financial services, and used vehicles were only slightly offset by lower prices for clothing and for communication commodities…the Consumer Price Index Summary from the Bureau […]

Keeping Fingers Crossed As US Commits To Removing Military From Afghanistan  Yes, President Biden has bitten the bullet to remove US troops from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attack that triggered our initial entry into that nation for our longest war.  Of course, we shall not quite be fully out as not […]

Wealth distribution in the US continues to be a first order economic issue Tomorrow (Thursday) is one of those days when just about Every Economic Statistic in the World will be released. In the meantime, no new data today. So, while we wait, let me send you over to this article by Wolf Richter analyzing the […]