We made many mistakes in our response to the coronavirus over the past year. One of the most critical was our failure to massively expand our capacity to produce coronavirus tests and masks and other PPE. As many economists including Paul Romer noted last spring, mass testing and wide distribution of high quality masks would […]
Before Science, treating the symptoms of an illness was all we had. Along our way, using trial and error, we found a few things that worked. The big breakthroughs came when we started to look for the causes of an illness. The association of an illness with toxins was deducible. Then, as we knew more […]
Several comments on my last post on the economic difficulties of the people who attacked the Capitol took aim at their characters in one way or another. I certainly do not want to defend the Capitol invaders in any way. I think they should be vigorously prosecuted. However, it is critically important to step back […]
The Slightly Less Than August Back in the days of Adm. Rickover’s Navy, we were taught the technical term CRUD for the radioactive metallic deposits found in the reactor’s coolant system, that the word stood for Chalk River Undetermined Deposits, Chalk River being a river in Canada with a Nuclear Lab named after it, which […]
As is very rare, I find myself disagreeing with Josh Marshall who asked “What Were the Democratic Senators Thinking?” when they agreed to accept Representative Jaime Herrera-Beutler’s assertions (that Trump sided with the insurgents over minority leader McCarthy’s) in writing when Trump’s lawyers stipulated that they could be assumed to be accurate. First, I will […]
House Bill Markup Details Updated Democrats are updating the ACA and detailing the $1.9 Tn bill to meet the Covid Pandemic and the resulting unemployment. The aid goes well beyond the direct payment of an additional $1400/person. The assumption is the released House COVID Relief Bill ends up passing as part of the final American Rescue Plan […]
From the WAPO: Despite her outward signs of success, Ryan had struggled financially for years. She was still paying off a $37,000 lien for unpaid federal taxes when she was arrested. She’d nearly lost her home to foreclosure before that. She filed for bankruptcy in 2012 and faced another IRS tax lien in 2010. Nearly […]
Let’s discuss something worth getting really excited about, the Biden/Romney child tax credit/child allowance proposals. These proposals would make life much better for poor children and their parents. A lot better. Neither proposal goes as far as I would like, but they would be a real improvement and could be made more generous over time. […]
Dear Judy, I just want to let you know that I’m here for you on your problem with bipartisanship, and to apologize for not being there for you when you were struggling so with your problem with her emails. As far as I’ve been able to determine, to date: Partisans were a subspecies of humans […]
Impeachment: What’s the Message? The mantra of the moment is that impeachment is not a trial and shouldn’t be governed by the same rules that apply to a court of law. True, but that means it’s really a political event, where the verdict matters less than the message. What’s coming through the media reporting is […]