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

Older People now Outnumber Younger People With Student Loan Debt*

That coming from Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice Org. I have been writing about him, his supporters and followers, his Org. Student Loan Justice, and the government’s response to student loans for a decade now. This is news, facts, etc. about 45 million people in 2022 and not some anecdote. The post title comes […]

July mfg. and June constr. spending: leading components of both are negative

Quick note; “ISM metric strongly suggests that it is likely that the economy will enter recession no later than Q1 of next year, and possibly much sooner (but probably not now). more detail below July manufacturing and June construction spending: leading components of both are negative  – by New Deal democrat As usual, the new […]

Value-based payment has produced little value. It needs a time-out

Kip Sullivan sent this article to me today. Usually, I find them before he sends them to me. A quick introduction to the topic of this article. Billions of dollars are being spent on value-based ACO programs. They have done little to improve Americans’ health or lower health care costs. As the authors point out, […]

Inflation as a Political Power Play Gone Wrong

Dale Coberly found this excellent analysis on economic happenings by Yanis Varoufakis. How did all of this Inflation come about? Certainly, wages have not been outstripping everything else. Labor is going to take a hit eventually. We do have supply chain issues. Much caused by countries shutting down. Companies not maintaining orders to the manufacturers […]

The Bonddad Blog: Weekly Indicators for July 25 – 29 at Seeking Alpha

Weekly Indicators for July 25 – 29 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. There have been some interesting counter-trend movements in the indicators. For example, interest rates on mortgages have declined by more than 1% since their peak one month ago. Gas prices have declined by […]

Real income continued to fall in June, while consumers dug deeper to spend

Real income continued to fall in June, while consumers dug deeper to spend  – by New Deal democrat In June personal income rose 0.6% nominally, and nominal spending rose 1.1%. The personal consumption deflator, i.e., the relevant measure of inflation, clocked in at 1.0%, meaning real income fell -0.4%, while real personal spending rose 0.1%. […]

How Changes In Changes In Inventories Have Brought US The “Recession” That Is Probably Not A Recession

How Changes In Changes In Inventories Have Brought US The “Recession” That Is Probably Not A Recession by Barkley Rosser, Econospeak  Based on just announced preliminary results, it looks like the US will have experiences negative GDP growth for the first two quarters of 2022. Based on a “rule of thumb” introduced in a New […]

Review of “Superfuel”

Growing up in Oak Ridge TN in the ‘60s, terms like “homogeneous reactor,” “molten salt reactor” and “breeder reactor” were frequently used, although I couldn’t have explained them at the time. Research into nuclear power became the mission of Oak Ridge National Labs after the war under the direction of Alvin Weinberg. A few years […]

Long leading indicators embedded in Q2 GDP suggest a recession is near at hand

Long leading indicators embedded in Q2 GDP suggest a recession is near at hand  – by New Deal democrat Where does the economy go from here?  If it’s not in recession, it isn’t doing much better. There are two components of GDP which are helpful in finding out what lies ahead: real residential fixed investment (housing) […]