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

Greenspan Admits ‘Flaw’ to Congress, Predicts More Economic Problems

Just some history . . . An October 15, 2008, article in The Washington Post analyzing the origins of the economic crisis claims Greenspan vehemently opposed any regulation of derivatives, and actively sought to undermine the office of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. If you recall, Brooksley Born was the head of the CFTC. A litany od experts and […]

Spending soars, income stagnates, savings sink like the Titanic

Spending soars, income stagnates, savings sink like the Titanic  – by New Deal democrat Real life intruded yesterday, so I didn’t put up any information about the Q3 GDP report. I’ll write in detail next week, but in the meantime there were 4 basic highlights: 1. Obviously it was an excellent report overall. 2. The […]

First as tragedy . . .

Not to put too fine a point on it, the recent chaos in the GOP-controlled House isn’t a bug, it’s a feature for the modern GOP. There isn’t any daylight between Gym Jordan and Mike Johnson, politically, but policy no longer matters to the GOP. It’s just optics, and Johnson has (so far) mastered the […]

SCOTUS declined to hear AG Paxton’s Texas v. Pennsylvania

The Supreme Court declined to hear the case, Texas v. Pennsylvania. December 20, 2020. Two days ago, during a press conference Rachel Scott drew the ire of Republicans as she asked a question of newly appointed House Speaker Mike Johnson. Representative Mike Johnson (R-LA) was instrumental in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.  ABC News congressional reporter Rachel […]

‘$23 Billion Up for Grabs’

Just got done exchanging a couple of emails with Steve about Suzanne’s and his latest commentary about the growing privatization of the VA. Looks like the VA is farming out more of the veteran’s care to contractors which will come at a much higher cost. Outsourcing to for-profit entities is not a good practice. We […]

USPS issues final environmental impact statement on new delivery fleet

The USPS is an entity on to itself and is called out in the U.S. Constitution. For years it has functioned quite while even with Congress (Senator Collins) placing requirements upon it to fully fund parts of no commercial business in the US is required to do. The USPS is not a commercial business. It […]

Gaza N

This is an inspiring article, but one sentence makes me sad “Israel’s massive democracy movement is ready for war” The general inspiring story is that the massive movement trying to protect the Israeli judiciary from Netanyahu has temporarily shifted to protecting Israel from Hamas and helping internally displaced Israelis. “ a logical evolution, said Bressler, […]

Biden, Netanyahu, and Gaza

First if my obsession with sharing ideas based on my almost total ignorance is getting to be a nuisance please tell me (can’t hurt – might get me to stop – no promises). Second, many commenters (on my pointless posts below) claim that the USA could prevent Israel from killing even larger numbers of Palestinians […]