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

GAO: Government Losses on Federal Student Loan Programs?

As you “should” know by now, Alan Collinge is an activist and has organized the Student Loan Justice Org a number of years ago. The Organization attempts to represent those student loan borrowers who have no recourse for forgiveness or bankruptcy as every other person in the nation has when taking out a loan? Alan […]

The Semiconductor Bill and Moderna Billionaires

A lot has been said about building semiconductor manufacturing plants in the US. One plant grows the silicon wafers and the other plant fabricates (fabs) the semiconductors. The manufacture of semiconductors is not labor intensive. Growing wafers is boring business as one engineer told me a decade back. The US did manufacture much of its […]

The long leading outlook through mid-year 2023 at Seeking Alpha

The long leading outlook through mid year 2023 at Seeking Alpha I posted the long leading outlook this last week at Seeking Alpha, and seeing as there is no big economic news today, this might be a good day to bring you up to speed. My long leading outlook for 12 months from now can […]

Medicare Drug price control in the Inflation Reduction Act Moves Forward Except for Insulin

JAMA Network “How Do Commercial Insurance Plans Fare Under Proposed Prescription Drug Price Regulation?” Rena M. Conti, Richard G. Frank, Len M. Nichols December 2021, this article came out detailing Medicare negotiating directly with pharmaceutical companies and the impact of the negotiation on people insured by commercial plans. That is if commercial insurance plans were […]

Jobless claims: once again, a relentless uptrend

Jobless claims: once again, a relentless uptrend I feel like a broken record at this point, as every week the trend seems more and more relentless. Initial jobless claims rose once again, by 14,000 (seriously revised down by 12,000 from last week’s reading of 260,000) to 262,000. More importantly, the 4 week average rose another […]

The Future of Farming

The world economy is undergoing extreme changes that have been both generational as well as exacerbated by lack of investment, global pandemic and supply chain crunch. Logistical nightmare aside, the generational shift from the prosperity of the Baby Boomer generation in the West as well as the great readjustment in China post Mao and the […]

Immigration, Population, Replacement, Politics and the Economy

Just some ramblings of mine after looking at numbers . . . . Immigration, Population Replacement, Politics, and the Economy are what comes together to ensure national growth. I am going to talk each in no particular order to answer my own questions that come up from time to time. Voting patterns continue to change. […]

July consumer inflation: a tale of two disparate trends

July consumer inflation: a tale of two disparate trends  – by New Deal democrat Consumer prices were unchanged in July, as two very disparate trends canceled out one another. YoY prices increased 8.5%, below June’s multi-decade record of 9.0%: The two disparate trends are shown in the below bar graph of monthly changes since the […]

Coronavirus dashboard August 9: BA.5 dominant, slowly waning, a model for endemicity

Coronavirus dashboard for August 9: BA.5 dominant, with a slow waning; a model for endemicity  – by New Deal democrat  BIobot’s most recent update, through last week, shows a decline of 15% of COVID in wastewater, consistent with about 460,000 “real” new infections per day: All 4 Census regions (not shown) are participating in […]

Weekly Indicators for August 1 – 5 at Seeking Alpha

Weekly Indicators for August 1 – 5 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Several important metrics have reversed course in the past month. Interest rates, especially mortgage rates, have declined (in the case of mortgages, by 1 full % from their peak. As many have pointed […]