On Harvard: “The White House (yes, technically the GSA guy and the two lawyers) sent that letter to Harvard, demanding de facto control of the university’s hiring, admissions and various elements of its curriculum. Harvard replied with a flat rejection ten days ago. The White House immediately responded by freezing $2.3 billion in grants to […]
The Executive Order to End Voting – Joyce Vance Civil Discourse Apparently, Trump wasn’t kidding when he told people 2024 was the last election they’d ever have to vote in if he won. On March 25, 2025, he issued an executive order = “PRESERVING AND PROTECTING THE INTEGRITY OF AMERICAN ELECTIONS” – that is a vehicle for making […]
Claudia Sahm documenting the personal attack by Trump on Fed Chair Powell and his actions concerning the economy. Typical modus operandi by Trump to critique the person’s intellect and capability . . . “A crash course in Fed independence,” Claudia Sahm With recession odds rising and the stock market down, it is no surprise that […]
A brief 🙂 rundown on how Trump is blowing the economy up and taking us with him. For someone who wants to be in charge, he is most certainly absent. He is not taking control and giving direction to his sycophants who are floundering in different directions. The fighting amongst them damages the US as […]
The Abduction of Kilmar Abrego Garcia Is Not About Politics, Washington Monthly Pragmatism is a worthy principle in politics. If parties can’t win elections, they can’t shape policy. To win elections, parties need to build coalitions of base voters plus swing voters. Since issues that motivate base voters don’t always move swing voters, sometimes politicians […]
What it means if you cut trade with China and Asia. Shipments start to decrease once the announcement is made. The impact is shown in Paul Krugman’s bar chart. I added the numbers in the second chart. Containers also come out of other countries. Keep in mind. One week (minimum) in the port on either. […]
– by New Deal democrat In ordinary times, new home sales are important because while they are very noisy and heavily revised, they are the most leading of all housing metrics. They remain important even presently because they can tell us about the underlying upward or downward pressure on the economy going forward one year […]
The House Republicans’ budget resolution is now available. In it, they are proposing a cut of ~$800 billion. Almost all of the $800 billion 10-year spending cut target for the Energy and Commerce Committee would come out of Medicaid by choice. (God forbid those not being able to afford healthcare should have healthcare.) Those with […]
The training for an independent research career in the biomedical sciences entails a significant opportunity cost. It takes an average of about seven years from the bachelors degree to get the PhD, and then there are 2-5 years of postdoctoral training. Indeed, it’s common to do two postdocs to get diversified training. Those years could […]
Regional Feds so far on general business conditions in April: the worst since July 2022 – by New Deal democrat Three of the five regional Feds that report on their region’s state of the economy have now reported for April. With one exception in the data, everything is negative. On the manufacturing side, the NY Fed […]