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

Shocking if true

From The Hill today: For Harris, there was more flexibility to define her brand of change. She could risk looking hypocritical by making clean breaks with Biden on policies she had supported as vice president, rejecting parts of their record to forge her own agenda. She could identify new issues to run on that avoided the pitfalls […]

JOLTS revisions from Yesterday’s Report

Angry Bears’ New Deal democrat discusses JOLTS frequently. I am not sure if everyone knows what it means. I believe it calls for a short explanation. The acronym JOLTS is an abbreviation for “Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) produces JOLTS reports monthly and also annual estimates of job […]

No Invading Allies Act

Proud to see this coming from Rhode Island: “A new bill introduced to the United States House of Representatives would withhold federal funding for any American “operations to invade or seize territory from” Canada, Panama or Greenland — unless Congress agrees to it first, that is. “Introduced Thursday by Rhode Island Rep. Seth Magaziner, the […]

January JOLTS report: monthly increases, but significant downward revisions to 2024

 – by New Deal democrat To review briefly, the monthly JOLTS reports give us a more granular look at the employment sector, but are delayed by one month vs. the jobs report. Like the jobs reports, most JOLTS series have shown deceleration for several years. The question over the last year has been whether they […]

RFK Jr. blames the victims

Oops! Poor RFK Jr. He’s had to tiptoe back his attacks on childhood vaccines in the face of a measles outbreak in Texas. What’s a poor anti-vaxxer to do. Well, since vaccine denialists can never be wrong, they can only be wronged, Kennedy blames the victims: “In later comments, Kennedy suggested that severe symptoms mainly […]

True pricing: effects on competition

One of Economist David Zetland’s students. True pricing: effects on competition – The one-handed economist Sarah writes* Although Trump has once again pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement, American firms still face consequences in EU markets. Numerous countries are still committed to non-legally binding climate targets, but the EU demands full adherence […]

The (totally contradictory) Big Picture

Scenes from Friday’s jobs report: the (totally contradictory) Big Picture  – by New Deal democrat There is no important economic data today, so let’s take a closer look at some of the noteworthy items from Friday’s jobs report. I’ll start out with the Establishment Survey side and then turn to the Household Survey side. Goods […]

Duck and cover

President Musk’s superpower is that elected officials (Trump, GOP Congressmen) can just claim to be out of the loop and cede the staffing of government and the power of the purse to an unelected billionaire. I can’t think of another example of such an egregious failure of Constitutional government in the US. All the historical […]

Medicaid Cuts as Promoted by WSJ

As a subscriber to xpostfactoid, I have access to some excellent commentary by Andrew Spung. This is not a person I would argue with about the ACA, Medicare or Medicaid, etc. Anyway, the WSJ has an article touting Medicaid cuts which did catch his attention and is the basis for his commentary. The link is […]