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

Housing permits and starts stabilizing, but construction?

Housing permits and starts stabilize, but construction comes close to generating yellow recession caution signal  – by New Deal democrat There was good news and bad news in this morning’s report on housing permits, starts, and construction. The good news is that both permits and starts stabilized after last month’s initially reported multi-year lows. The […]

Alienated labour and disposable time

By Tom Walker Econospeak Book proposal: Marx’s Fetters and the Realm of Freedom: a remedial reading — part 2.4 Marx’s remarkable, yet largely neglected statement that “[t]he whole development of wealth rests on the creation of disposable time” and his subsequent analysis of the relationship between disposable time, superfluous products, and surplus value suggests an […]

Book Review: Death in the Haymarket

I was born into an America where the eight-hour workday was widely observed. But what was for me just another fact of life was a hard-won right of the labor movement that cost hundreds of lives. “Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age […]

Credit Card Debt and Interest Rates

Just Released: New Data on Record Credit Card Debt & Interest Rates – WalletHub, Diana Polk WalletHub analyzed Federal Reserve data released today and found that credit card debt hit a new record high of $1.27 trillion in May 2024, which is 4% higher than last year after adjusting for inflation. With the average credit card APR now even […]

“Since I took office, I have been working to secure funding for the Mobile bridge and get this project underway.”

Except as Alabama Democrat Representative Terri Sewell pointed out, Tommy Tuberville voted against the bill ($550. million) that provided the money. President Joe Biden’s Department of Transportation allocated the funding. If trump Wins the Election . . . July 12, 2024 by Prof. Heather Cox Richardson Letters from an American AB: Politicians are too busy […]

Since 2017, Billionaires Doubled Their Wealth

It is no secret. The Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 was skewed to the rich, expensive, and failed to deliver economic benefits. As Americans for Tax Fairness writes, the TCJA benefited billionaires greatly doubling their cumulative wealth. A different take being those making less than $114,000 in 2016 saw “no change in […]

No, democracy doesn’t lead to socialism

Kevin Drum has a post up at jabberwocking.com about a claim by the chair of the Alabama GOP that democracies lead to socialism. I can’t think of a single example of a socialist country that evolved from democracy to socialism. Russia became socialist when the Bolsheviks overthrew the Kerensky government by violent revolution. Socialism throughout […]