February housing construction rangebound, but at recessionary or near-recessionary levels – by New Deal democrat As usual, the month’s important housing data starts out with construction. For a quick refresher, I follow this because housing typically leads the rest of the economy by a year or more. After the very leading, but very noisy and […]
As Joyce Vance states, “that’s not how it works. If a judge is considering whether a party, especially the government, is in contempt of an order, the judge gets whatever information they need. Otherwise, it is contempt.” Deportations: It’s not where it starts, it’s where it ends, Civil Discourse Just ahead of the hearing scheduled […]
Chief Justice John Roberts bears a great deal of responsibility for the situation we are in. His Citizens United alone did tremendous harm. Then there were Shelby and Rucho. If asked, he would say the three were the right decision when they obviously weren’t. They were rationalizations. Something humans are very good at. Often, […]
“The federal government provides roughly 14% of funding for public K-12 education, with states and local governments contributing the majority. This federal funding can vary significantly from state to state.” Federal public education funding is equivalent to 0.51% of total taxpayer income. Yikes, that is alot! The Department of Education has a budget of ~$104 billion. […]
Telling the federal judiciary to “f*** off” Friends, Sorry to intrude on your inboxes for a second time today, but it’s necessary. After a federal judge pressed the Trump administration to provide evidence by 5 pm today about whether the White House had violated the court’s order in deporting migrants with little to no due […]
Lots of the food on your grocery shelves is imported. It has to be inspected, both for safety and to prevent the importation of agricultural pests that could destroy domestically grown crops. Fire the inspectors and you put everyone’s food future at risk. ““It’s causing problems left and right,” says one current USDA worker, who […]
– by New Deal democrat Let me start out this month with a historical review of why I have always paid so much attention to real retail sales. Going back almost 80 years, real retail sales have always turned down in advance of a recession, and they have almost always turned negative YoY simultaneously or […]
Walgreens does not set drug prices; the Insurance companies do. And there is the issue. Insurance company’s contract the PBMs to negotiate with the pharmacy chains such as Walgreens or CVS. They establish the pricing contract on covered drugs and what portion those pharmacies get reimbursed in return servicing their customers. Walgreens felt it did […]
– by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. Despite the steep sell-off and rebound in the stock market this week, the underlying “hard data” indicators about money, spending, and transportation were all steady and almost all positive. The sell-off was about sentiment due to the uncertainty brought about by the […]
“The mRNA technology faces growing doubts among Republicans, including people around President Donald Trump. “Legislation aimed to ban or limit mRNA vaccines was introduced this year by GOP lawmakers in at least seven states. In some cases, the measures would hit doctors who give the injections with criminal penalties, fines, and possible revocation of their […]