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

Home Insurance Rates are Rising Fast

Why home insurance rates are rising so fast across the US. Climate change plays a big role, The Conversation Millions of Americans have been watching with growing alarm as their homeowner insurance premiums rise and their coverage shrinks. Nationwide, premiums rose 34% between 2017 and 2023, and they continued to rise in 2024 across much of the country. […]

Repeat home sales indexes show further, marked deceleration in price inflation; bode well for the Fed

– by New Deal democrat This morning’s repeat house price indexes from the FHFA and Case Shiller continued to show deceleration in this metric which is very important to home buyers. Specifically, in the three month average through July, U.S. house prices rose 0.2% according to Case Shiller’s national index, and only 0.1% according to the slightly more […]

Too cheap to meter

Lewis Strauss, former chair of the AEC, coined the phrase “too cheap to meter” referring to the potential for nuclear power. It was a phrase I grew up hearing in Oak Ridge TN, but it never came to be, there or anywhere else. Now, the Wall Street Journal claims that day has arrived, not because […]

Disaggregating the Big Picture: the Fed still wants to make your recession forecast wrong

 – by New Deal democrat Today, New Deal democrat offers a Big Picture hypothesis. This is Housing Week, but there is no significant data today, and I’m going to wait for new home sales to be reported on Wednesday before commenting on how existing home sales fit in. In the meantime, let me unpack a […]

Did Costs Really Increase as Much as Prices Did?

Commenter Jane on the News Media Lying to the Public Commentary I know that things cost more now.  Much of that has nothing to do with what the federal government does or does not do.  The government did not force suppliers to raise their profit percentages when their costs went up, that was just greed […]

Housing Shortage, Housing Bubble, Soft Landing, FED Brilliance or Luck?

I think the title makes it clear that this will be a rambling confused post. I am typing on with the thought that something is better than nothing and no one has to read this. The first topic – house prices, is in fact one that interests me a lot. I have a regression which […]

The 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act 

by Bill Gale EconoFact The 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) was the most sweeping realignment of the U.S. tax code in over three decades. It lowered tax rates, simplified taxes, raised the government debt, and was regressive, benefitting people who are well off more than the middle-class and the poor. Many provisions of the TCJA expire […]

Turning a corner on Medicare Advantage?

As I posted yesterday, Medicare Advantage, which now covers more than half of the Medicare-eligible population, is a rip-off for taxpayers and for policy holders. Apparently, this is finally sinking in for hospitals and health systems across the country: “In 2023, Becker’s began reporting on hospitals and health systems nationwide that dropped some or all […]