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

New Deal democrat’s Weekly Indicators for March 27 – 31

Weekly Indicators for March 27 – 31 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat I keep forgetting to put up this link on Saturdays, but you know where to find it: my Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The good thing about high frequency indicators is you can see what is happening with trends […]

Two Banks in Trouble, Some History, and Four Opinions

I have read enough on the bailing out of two banks (Silicon Valley Bank and the smaller Signature bank). in 2018, I had argued against increasing the $50 or $100 (?) billion limit to $250 billion. These were commercial banks which were allowed in 2008 to join with Wall Street banks to dabble in securities, […]

Exploring the Consumer and Environment Issues

With the exception of the One-handed Economist, quite a few of these consumerism and environmental articles show up in my In-Box. Some of them are actually quite good. In the past I did have some of them my In-Box Post. I thought this time I would break them out separately. Most of the are from […]

New Deal democrat’s Weekly Indicators March 20 – 24

Weekly Indicators for March 20 – 24 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat I’ve neglected to put this up for the past several weeks, but by now you know where to find my latest Weekly Indicator post at Seeking Alpha. Probably unsurprisingly, in the week after the Silicon Valley Bank failure, just about every financial […]

The Big Myth, by Naomi Oreskes

Naomi Oreskes: All good myths have a kernel of truth. The other title: MAGA: You’ve been played. In her book: The Big Myth, How American Business Taught us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market she researched the history of the source of the position and ideology of “Free Market” capitalism void of regulation. […]

Barney Frank Disagrees with Senator Elizabeth Warren on the weakening of financial rules

This is conversation between Summers and Frank are from March 13th. In this conversation, Barney could be right. He is refusing to agree that raising the limit for banks was a bad idea. If so, then how do you protect the public and the bank from bank managers doing stupid things? Gambling again with other […]

Medicare Plan Commissions May Steer Beneficiaries to Wrong Coverage

This article is easy reading exploring some the differences and why people may choose one plan over the other plan. Attached is also a Commonwealth Fund article with more detail. Medicare Plan Commissions May Steer Beneficiaries to Wrong Coverage, MedPage Today, Cheryl Clark. Agents and brokers selling Medicare plan coverage often steer their clients to […]

Prescriptive View: Three Layers of a Fed Failure

In 2018. I made a similar argument without the detail Skanda Amarnath provides today. My points were not accepted. I went to a “we shall see” mode. And we did see banks taking risks because they could do so because Congress (which included Democrats) gave them the slack to do so too soon. In 2018, […]

Thoughts on Silicon Valley Bank: Why the FDIC plan isn’t (but also is) a Bailout

Thoughts on Silicon Valley Bank: Why the FDIC plan isn’t (but also is) a bailout; and why systemic risk remains  – by New Deal democrat There’s no big economic data being released today. Which I guess is fortunate, since we had a little kerfuffle over the weekend. Which may or may not be over. Herewith hopefully […]