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

Grades and learning

by David Zetland The one-handed economist Schools tend to go to one extreme or another when it comes to grades: they are either confidential or posted openly. The reasons for confidential tend to involve self esteem, privacy, peer pressure and bullying. The idea is that students will be mean to each other if they know […]

County shows higher levels of PFAS in blood than the U.S. population

The DHHS report (Michigan) found age, gender and other factors contributed to differing PFAS blood levels Kyle Davidson @ Michigan Advance Angry Bear: Shortly before we left Michigan for other digs. the pollution of water ways due to PFAS was coming more to light where we lived in Livingston County as well as other parts […]

High school financial literacy?

I thought this might make a fun follow-up on my post on 8th grade algebra. Over at jabberwocking.com, Kevin Drum discusses a proposal to make a semester of financial literacy a high school graduation requirement. He feels that this would fill a much-needed gap: “There are no long-term tests of financial literacy that I can […]

February jobs report: Household Survey is downright recessionary and the Establishment Survey is decidedly mixed

February jobs report: the Household Survey is downright recessionary, while the Establishment Survey is decidedly mixed  – by New Deal democrat In the past few months, my focus has been on whether jobs gains are most consistent with a “soft landing,” i.e., no further deterioration, or whether deceleration is ongoing; and more specifically:  Here’s my in […]

Big Mac Index Measuring Purchasing Power Parity Globally

Wikipedia: The Big Mac Index is a price index published since 1986 by The Economist. It is an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two currencies and providing a test of the extent to which market exchange rates result in goods costing the same in different countries. It “seeks to make exchange-rate theory a bit more digestible. The index compares the relative price worldwide to […]

Buy an Electric Vehicle or a Hybrid Electric Vehicle?

Another site has a long article on Toyota of it not going whole hog into electric vehicles in the beginning. Meanwhile domestic US automotive companies are proving out the technology with their models. Beyond mentioning the article, I will not delve into its content. That is other than saying it exists and may be a […]