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

More for Them, Less for Us, Talking Taxes and Deficits

Ran across am Americans for Tax Fairness article last night. Corporation tax dodging and executive pay has both is far out of control. A significant number of major U.S. corporations are paying their top executives more than they’re paying federal income taxes.  Matters have worsened with trump taking office in 2016 and the TCJA Making […]

Open Thread March 24 2024 Shorter Work Week – Is It All It Promises to Be?

A New Norm: Senators Bernie Sanders and Laphonza Butler presented an intriguing idea: making a shorter work week a national norm. The bill they introduced proposes changing the standard workweek with no loss in pay for certain groups of employees, including many hourly workers, from 40 to 32 hours, at which point overtime pay would kick in. […]

Where Does Wealth Come From?

Wrong answers only: “saving” Originally Published at Wealth Economics In my last post, I tried to say precisely what the words “wealth” and “assets” mean as they’re used in this blog. This post tackles the question of wealth accumulation. Where does wealth come from? What are the mechanisms that create assets? Households and the accounting-ownership pyramid […]

2025 Medicare Advantage Advance Notice: Small Changes, Missed Opportunities

Pretty much a rewrite to provide simpler reading and a better understanding for readers. My rewrite did not make it much shorter. It is taken from a recent 2025 Health Affairs article. The main thrust of this article being commercial Medicare Advantage insurance companies taking advantage of government payments for healthcare to Medicare patients. The […]

Leading Indicators Continue To Improve

New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators for March 18 – 22 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. I look at the high frequency weekly indicators because while they can be very noisy, they provide a good nowcast of the economy, and will telegraph the maintenance or change in […]

Right-wing attempts to impose Christian nationalism on the United States

History and some excellent up-to-date reporting by Prof. Heather cox Richardson I am sharing here as I subscribe to her Letters from an American. She explains the efforts of a few, a minority of political actors who are attempting to sway the opinions of Americans with their stilted dialogue promoting right-wing beliefs. It should be […]

Signs of a thaw in the frozen existing homes market, but a very long way to go

 – by New Deal democrat There’s no big economic news today, but yesterday existing home sales were released. While they have historically constituted up to 90% of the entire market, they have much less economic impact than new home sales, which involve all sorts of construction activity, followed by landscaping, furnishings, and other sales. Since […]

The Lie Banks Use To Protect Late-Fee Profits

Hal Singer at Lever News wrote a commentary explaining how banks (mostly) are upset with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau capping credit card late fees at $8. One would think this covers every bank. It does not and only covers banks with more than 1 million card holders. Any bank or organization with less customers […]

Republican Budget Cuts Earned Benefits; Keeps Trump Tax Cuts

Angry Bears’ Social Security expert Dale Coberly emailed this to me about the same time it showed up in my inbox. Republicans again are trying to sell the public on the need to cut Social Security and Medicare Budgets for those over 65. Cutting them while keeping the Trump tax breaks which will result in […]

The positive streak of news from initial and continuing jobless claims continues

 – by New Deal democrat Initial and continuing claims once again continued their recent good streak.  Bonddad Blog Initial claims declined -2,000 to 210,000, while the four-week moving average rose 2,500 to 211,250. Continuing claims, with the typical one-week delay, increased 4,000 to 1.807 million: While these aren’t the 50+ year lows we saw 18 […]