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

A Change in Attitude after the November Election

God has a plan and Congress does not. November 2024 and the election is over. Rep. Mark Alford, a Lake Winnebago Republican, won a second term in Congress Tuesday, gliding to an easy election win in Missouri’s heavily conservative 4th Congressional District. The Associated Press called the race for Alford at 9:24 p.m. At the […]

Existing home sales: trends of increasing prices, increasing inventory, and flat sales all continue

 – by New Deal democrat Existing home sales have been flat in the general range of 3.85 -4.10 million annualized for two years, and that continued in January, as on a monthly basis sales decreased -4.9% to 40.8 million from an upwardly revised December number of 4.29 million annualized: The slightly better numbers in the […]

GOP cuts to Medicaid will harm America’s health

“Congress is considering proposals that could change Medicaid financing and eligibility. “Some of these proposed changes could cause millions of people to lose access to care under Medicaid. People without coverage often skip necessary care, leading to worse health outcomes. For people in poor health, the results can be dangerous. “Cuts will put a greater […]

The fake economics of DOGE

DOGE is claiming to have saved $55 billion so far. The NYT calls bullshit: “The math that could back up those checks is marred with accounting errors, incorrect assumptions, outdated data and other mistakes…. Some contracts the group claims credit for were double- or triple-counted. Another initially contained an error that inflated the totals by […]

Perception of Business, Military, Education, and Religion

The differences in Republican and Democrat’s views can play out in how they view certain aspects of the US. For example, small businesses versus corporations. Both appear to perceive small business as being positive and take a negative view on corporations. I suspect it is one having a greater impact versus the other. Americans overwhelmingly […]

Ignore Pete Hesgeth

The current House and Senate budget proposals both include defense increases of about $100-150 billion over ten years, or about $10-15 billion per year in nominal dollars. Toy Sec Def Hegseth is proposing a cut in defense spending of -$70 billion per year. Anyone who thinks the House and Senate will pass a bill with […]

We Should Abolish “Capital”

– by Steve Roth Originally posted at Wealth Economics “Capital” is polysemous; it has multiple meanings. People, notably including economists (who should know better), constantly muddle those meanings together even within a single sentence, so that nobody including the speakers and writers themselves knows, or can know, what the speaker is saying. It’s a centuries-old dumpster fire — conceptual and […]