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

Public charging stations at Canada’s Post offices. Why can’t it happen here?

Steve Hutkins discussing EVs and the charging stations. This was one of the arguments leading up to the US Post Offices having EV postal delivery vehicles. If Canada can do it, why not the US. It is a bit more as the Canadian Postal workers unio are talking about the public using their charging stations, […]

Arrest warrant moot for kidnapping of Emmett Till

One may think this is a dead issue. It may be for law enforcement and White Americans. If you go to the News Break site, you will see over 190 comments concerning the murder of the young black boy Emmett Till and the subsequent failure to question Mrs. Roy Bryant (Carolyn Bryant Donham). Her comments […]

The 90/10 rule of motivations

The 90/10 rule of motivations by David Zetland Since 2009, I have talked about a 20/80 rule of motivations, e.g., “My rule of thumb is that about 20 percent of people conserve [water] because it’s the right thing to do, and 80 percent conserve because it’s expensive NOT to [because prices are high].” My point is that […]

The Economic Cost of Gun Violence

Since I pulled this article from Everytown, here is a bit of information about it. “We are the largest gun violence prevention organization in America. Made up of more than six million mayors, moms, teachers, survivors, gun owners, students, and everyday Americans who have come together to make their communities safer.” I am guessing there is […]

Financialism

Back before, municipal and state governments, pension funds, etc. mostly invested in financials of the manufacturing sort. Then, America was in the manufacturing business. An issuing manufacturer was contractually bound to hand over the return owed. The investors were entitled. If they didn’t get their entitle, it was, ‘”see you in court.” In 2023, in […]

April 14, 2023, Letters from an American . . . the Fentanyl Epidemic

The last few days, I have been pointing to the Opioid epidemic which did not just start with Fentanyl. It has been ongoing before the introduction of Qxycontin by the Sadler’s Purdue Pharmaceuticals. In 1996. It was advertised by Purdue as a nonaddictive drug by misquoting Doctors Jane Porter and Herschel Jick’s letter to NEJM […]

Researchers reveal U’s painful past with Minnesota’s Indigenous people

The civilized American peoples were here long before the colonists arrived from other countries. This is the story of some discovering their past in what was called America after the arrival of the new people. Researchers reveal U’s painful past with Minnesota’s Indigenous people, MPR News, Dan Kraker and Melissa Olson. A massive new report […]

March employment report 2: unemployment recession indicators

Scenes from the March employment report 2: unemployment recession indicators  – by New Deal democrat A reminder: I may be offline for the next couple of days. In the meantime, yesterday I looked at the 5 leading indicators contained in the employment report, and summarized how they either signal recession now or within the next […]

Trusting statistics

I had a Facebook discussion yesterday about statistics. At one point, my interlocutor posted “You should know better than anyone that statistics can be manipulated to actually show the opposite of what is real.” Well, just to be clear, that’s not a problem with statistics, that’s a problem of motivated reasoning, which is not a […]