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

NPR discusses Steve Bannon and his impact on Breitbart News.

I have written about left of center or centrist organizations writing in a manner which no longer reflects a liberal, progressive, or centrist view. NPR just went out on a limb with its recent conversation with Breitbart Senior Editor at Large Joel Pollak about newly elected Donald Trump’s selection of Steve Bannon as his administration’s […]

Female Doctors

This has been widely reported over the past few days:   Doctors from Harvard have an intriguing suggestion for saving 32,000 lives each year: Make sure all senior citizens who wind up in the hospital are treated by female doctors. After examining the medical records of Medicare patients from across the country, the Harvard researchers calculated that […]

Crime and Punishment – A Thought Experiment

Imagine two neighborhoods in the same city subject to the same laws. Assume the crime rate is the same. Then you would expect arrest and prosecution rates to be the same. Now, assume two other neighborhoods, also in the same city and subject to the same laws. Call them A and B. Assume the arrest […]

Michigan Lame Duck Legislature

The Republican controlled House and Senate has been largely busy passing bills in the few days left in 2016. This particular one caught my eye. Michigan had put in place a new Unemployment System (Michigan Data Automated System or MiDAS) to help in detecting unemployment fraud. With the passage of Senate Bill 1008 by the […]

How What We Eat Has Changed

From Pew: Americans eat more chicken and less beef than they used to. They drink less milk – especially whole milk – and eat less ice cream, but they consume way more cheese. Their diets include less sugar than in prior decades but a lot more corn-derived sweeteners. And while the average American eats the […]

“One neat trick to stop Social Security ‘Reform'”

Republicans constantly try to bring Social Security into ongoing debates about ‘Balanced Budgets’. But they face a fundamental problem with their math. For a variety of reasons, some quite reasonable and others nakedly political (seniors vote) nearly every ‘Reform’ proposal out there promises to hold 55 and older harmless. Meaning you can’t have any more […]