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

Gimme Shelter: the rental affordability crisis has worsened  

Gimme Shelter: the rental affordability crisis has worsened Four years ago HUD warned of “the worst rental affordability crisis ever,” citing statistics that About half of renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, up from 18 percent a decade ago, according to newly released research by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Twenty-seven  percent […]

Cuomo: America ‘was never that great’

Gov. Andrew Cuomo at an event, where he signed anti sex-trafficking bills into law. “We’re not gonna make America great again. It was never that great. We have not reached greatness and we will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged. We will reach greatness when discrimination and stereotyping against women, 51 percent of […]

Ten Years Have Got Behind You

It has been almost ten years since: Bear Stearns folded Lehmann collapsed of its own free will I posted on this blog All of the above Those who guessed “c” or “d” are optimists. Those who are expecting a long series of posts dwelling on the correct answer of “b” (with some references to “a” […]

Weekly Indicators for August 6 – 10 at Seeking Alpha

Weekly Indicators for August 6 – 10 at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Two long leading indicators are within 1% of turning negative. And two short leading indicators are also weakening considerably. A friendly reminder that not only is the post informative, but I get […]

States Fight non-ObamaCare Health Plans

The Trump administration’s new policy of expanding the sale of “short-term” insurance plans as a cheaper alternative to ObamaCare is quickly running into opposition from state regulators. The Department of Health and Human Services is urging states to cooperate with the federal government, but instead, insurance commissioners are panning the new plans as “junk” insurance […]

In Defence of Comrade D’Souza

David Frum does not have a favorable view of Dinesh D’Souza and his latest movie, “Death of a Nation.” He argues sthat D’Souza’s alleged history is fiction, and that D’Souza is governed almost entirely by resentment of all of the experts in all of the fields in which he dabbles, who note that he is […]

Sunday Morning News Clips

Manual Transmission Foils Car Theft “A press release from the Nashville police department said they arrested two teenagers last Wednesday aftr they attempted to carjack two women that day and failed. The teens ultimately failed both times, with the second being because the car had a manual transmission. They had to run away on foot.” […]

Four measures of wages all show renewed stagnation

Four measures of wages all show renewed stagnation This is something I haven’t looked at in awhile. Since 2013, I have documented the stagnation vs. growth in average and median wages, for example here and here. I last did this in 2017. So let’s take an updated look. We have a variety of economic data series to track both […]

Real wages decline YoY, while real aggregate payrolls grow

Real wages decline YoY, while real aggregate payrolls grow With the consumer price report this morning, let’s conclude this weeklong focus on jobs and wages by updating real average and aggregate wages. Through July 2018, consumer prices are up 2.9% YoY, while wages for non-managerial workers are up 2.7%. Thus real wages have actually declined […]