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

The economics of national security

I see where Trump has tweeted on his Twitter knock-off Pravda Social that the number of foreign-made films imported to the US is a “national security threat.” He wants to use this as an excuse to impose a 100% tariff on foreign flicks. This elasticity in the definition of “national security” could be made to […]

No High Speed Trains in America Yet

Shanghai, China uses Electromagnetic Suspension (EMS) for levitation and propulsion. EMS uses the attractive force between electromagnets on the vehicle and a conductive track on the guideway to levitate the train and maintain a constant gap while travelling at high speed. The train is equipped with powerful electromagnets. I pulled this picture of a train […]

It’s the Spending Stupid

Trade Balances: It’s the Spending, Stupid by Steve Roth Wealth Economics This post is dedicated to my sister, who (bless her heart) really follows the financial press and etc. and tries to understand things. She called me up kind of flummoxed by all this tariff/trade talk recently, and now IMO has a super-good basic understand […]

So much for “just in time”

The “just in time” model is supposed to make supply chains more efficient by minimizing warehousing and storage. The current Trump tariffs are doing violence to the JIT model: “Trade experts say that companies have stockpiled enough inventory in recent months that, if the White House reverses course soon and significantly drops tariffs on China, […]

April jobs report: another good month, with little impact from “liberation day” tariffs – yet

 – by New Deal democrat My question over the past year had been whether “decleration” into a “soft landing”would turn into “deterioration” towards a recession. That has now been overtaken by events in the form of T—-p‘s tariffs and trade wars. So my focus now is looking for hard data, rather than reports of sentiment, […]

Loyalty Day Returns After Being Absent Since 1955

Similar was a part of the Red scare of the fifties when McCarthyism was the political(?) flavor of the day. The idea was to instill hysteria promulgating over a perceived threat posed to the U.S. during the Cold War. Not so much the fear of communists today. What is occurring is a range of actions […]

Heathcare Insurance Companies Abandoning Medicare Advantage redux

There are changes coming to the Medicare market place and Medicare Advantage. Healthcare Insurance companies are leaving the Medicare Advantage market. “Market exits by Humana, Aetna, and UnitedHealthcare will collectively affect nearly 70% of those 1.8 million individuals.” The remainder of the 1.8 million will be looking at new plans with the same insurance provider. […]