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

Trends in Electric Cars a Global EV Outlook 2024

A while back, I exchanged emails with the International Energy Agency. My goal was to find out what I could present, what I could not present, and also gain permission to utilize their charts and detail. They said yes. The detail here is on EVs in general and what countries are doing the most. As […]

Turning Retirement Accounts for the Middle Class Into a $5 Billion Tax-Free Piggy Bank

Each year in retirement, we take a certain amount of funds from our IRAs and it becomes income. This is a bit different than when we were paying regular income taxes on our yearly income minus investments. I was curious about this as the big story today is rich people slugging away thousands and maybe […]

Biden finalizes rule opening up Obamacare to DACA recipients

by Megan Messerly One more ACA rule was finalized by Biden today. Not something huge in numbers; but something which will impact a few thousand people. People who were allowed to stay in the US or under a program called.  Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA. A coalition of states, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, […]

Commercial or Charter Flights to BBall Games

Saturday stuff to quibble about. It appears Indiana Fever’s newest basketball player, Catlin Clark is being mobbed and followed as she travels to other cities to potentially play. It was bad in DFW Airport, Clark and her teammates were followed by reporters, with assorted other onlookers also wanting an eyeful of the star. The Indiana Fever […]

Ukraine, Israel, and Biden:  lessons and questions

Some thoughts on recent developments . . . Elite persuasion and its limits News reports suggest that President Biden got Speaker Mike Johnson to put a Ukraine aid bill on the floor of the House through good, old-fashioned persuasion:  Biden and his team convinced Johnson it was the right thing to do by sharing intelligence […]

April jobs report: counterbalancing March’s blockbuster good report, the first significant “ding” to the soft-landing scenario in months

 – by New Deal democrat In the past few months, my focus has been on whether jobs gains are most consistent with a “soft landing,” i.e., no further deterioration, or whether deceleration is ongoing; and more specifically:  All three of these metrics came in negative, in the sense of the lowest gain in jobs since last […]

A Teaser for you . . . Trickle Down Economics

Ever since Reagan and Thatcher first tried them, trickle-down policies have exploded budget deficits and widened inequality. At best, they’ve temporarily increased consumer demand (the opposite of what’s needed during high inflation that Britain and much of the world are experiencing). Reagan’s tax cuts and deregulation at the start of the 1980s were not responsible […]