Household debt and the pandemic This is something I used to pay a lot more attention to back around the time of the Great Recession. How stretched were American households in paying their monthly bills? The Federal Reserve publishes a quarterly update tracking this issue. Two of the metrics in that quarterly update are debt […]
Is There No Hope for “Muslim Social Democracy”? Probably not I am afraid. Indeed, this label is a recently cooked up one, to replace an earlier one that used “Islamist” instead of “Muslim.” The group claiming this apparently failing and declining label is the Ennadha Party of Tuinisia, founded in 1981 and still led by […]
Disposable people are indispensable. Who else would fight the wars? Who would preach? Who would short derivatives? Who would go to court and argue both sides? Who would legislate? Who would sell red hots at the old ball game? For too long disposable people have been misrepresented as destitute, homeless, unemployed, or at best precariously […]
I saw this bit of news on Steven Colbert’s show last night. Seems Nevada’s Democratic Governor thinks tech companies need to be their own town. The thinking is that this is a way to attract business development without spending money. What could go wrong? From the AP news: “Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak announced a plan […]
Commenter R.J.S.: Record drops in US oil output, US oil exports, distillates’ output on Texas freeze as US burns 15% of natural gas inventories in one week . . US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration for the week ending February 19th indicated that because the big drops in our oil exports and our oil refining associated […]
Two leading sectors of the economy – manufacturing, and housing – turn even hotter Last month I wrote that both the manufacturing and housing sectors were “on fire.” If anything, this month they turned white hot, with both construction spending and ISM manufacturing data at levels not seen in years. The overall ISM manufacturing reading […]
From WAPO: Senior Democrats are abandoning a backup plan to increase the minimum wage through a corporate tax penalty, after encountering numerous practical and political challenges in drafting their proposal over the weekend, according to two people familiar with the internal deliberations. . . . Economists and tax experts have said that the tax outlined […]
Some State AGs Take Action Seventeen State Attorney Generals signed and sent a letter to Congressional leadership (Schumer, Pelosi, McConnell, McCarthy) calling on Congress (Friday February 19) to pressure President Joe Biden to cancel up to $50,000 in federal student load debt for borrowers as a part of pandemic relief. The AGs write: “As the […]
by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for February 22 – 26 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. After months of virtually no changes in any of the time frames, suddenly there is activity in all of them. Some of it: – is short term noise due to the disaster in […]
January personal income and spending show how important government stimulus has been to keeping the economy afloat This morning’s report on January personal income and spending shows just how important the stimulus packages enacted by the federal government both last spring and last month have been to sustaining the economy.After adjusting for inflation both personal […]