Mother Jones tells the story here in graphic detail. The GOP’s Biggest Charter School Experiment Just Imploded How a washed-up lobbyist built a charter school empire and siphoned millions from public schools. “Now, with ECOT imploding, some state politicians have floated the idea that Lager, who has made millions in profits off the school and […]
The intensity of Fed rate hikes as a precursor to recessions Between 1931 and the mid-1950s, the yield curve never inverted, and yet there were 5 recessions (1938, 1945, 1948, 1950, and 1954). In particular, the 1938 “recession within the depression” was one of the worst of the 20th century. So in a low inflation […]
For the first time since the Great Recession my wage equation says average hourly earnings growth should be higher than the actual data shows. Moreover, the fitted value is rising sharply. Each of the three variables in the equation — the unemployment rate, capacity utilization and inflation expectations — is now pushing the fitted value […]
Lifted from comments on the post Our thoughts and opinions are with you, reader Mark Jamison writes: Comment: The filibuster is fundamentally undemocratic in a body that is already constructed undemocratically. The filibuster is an accident of history that has weaponized in the last twenty years. Yes, in particular circumstances it seems like a firewall […]
Via rjs newletter via Naked Capitalism: “Among its claims: The injection well ban violates the corporation’s rights as a “person” under the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments; the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and the Contract Clause and Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.” Court Orders Nonprofit Law Firm to Pay $52,000 to […]
Carbon footprint conundrum would be my title. Personal involvement is important (macro is too but not the point here), but this list points to involvements well beyond many our imaginations to implement as individuals. Personal decisions are much harder for the top activities mentioned, and from personal contacts not much on the radar of people’s […]
By Steve Roth (reposted) How Amazon’s Accounting Makes Rich People’s Income Invisible Increasingly, businesses don’t generate profits. They generate capital gains. It’s fiendishly clever. Image you’re Jeff Bezos, circa 1998. You’re building a company (Amazon) that stands to make you and your compatriots vastly rich. But looking forward, you see a problem: if your company […]
Minority unemployment: progress vs. prejudice On this Martin Luther King Day, let’s take a look at minority unemployment. This got a little attention earlier this month when the December jobs report showed the smallest gap ever between the unemployment rates of blacks and whites. So let’s start by confirming the good news. Indeed last month […]
Real wages in 2017 Now that we have the report on consumer prices for December, let’s take a look at what happened with real wages in 2017. Consumer prices increased +0.1% in December, and wages for non-managerial workers rose 0.3%, This for that month the average worker earned 0.2% more. For the year, the nominal […]
Via Marketwatch Jamie Galbraith states his thoughts on a how the current US economy functions. Here are a few snippets: University of Texas economist Galbraith, the son of the famous Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith, believes mainstream economists and the Federal Reserve are too wedded to old ideas to see what is really going on […]