A former mentor once explained to me why America would be better off if scientists ran the country. While technocracy isn’t inherently anti-democratic—America could simply elect scientists and engineers—the notion smacks of elitism. Of course, this country was founded on the idea of elitism. Only property-owning White men could vote. The president was appointed by […]
Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen review Trumps budget cuts. The implication here is it is near impossible to achieve the dramatic cuts without imposing severe penalties on the US Citizenry, The attempt is to balance the budget so as intakes equal outtakes of funds. Except Trump does not want to fix his 2017 tax break. […]
When I started out. it was the money. Kind of hard to buy a house and have kids if together you are pulling in $24,000/year. Then when the family starts, one of us will not be working (that was the plan). Get the first job, change jobs at two years, and work your way up […]
– by New Deal democrat There was unwelcome news in this morning’s repeat home sales reports from the FHFA and Case-Shiller. On a seasonally adjusted basis, in the three-month average through December, according to the Case-Shiller national index (light blue in the graphs below) prices rose 0.5%, and the somewhat more leading FHFA purchase only index (dark […]
This appears to be a new and unfamiliar use of the word “efficiency”: “The Department of Government Efficiency run by Elon Musk last week published an initial list of 1,125 contracts that it terminated in recent weeks across the federal government. Data published on DOGE’s “Wall of Receipts” shows that more than one-third of the […]
The question? How much Federal Public School Funding comes from the Feds? The answer is here and you have to read it for yourself. Not a lot of reading to stymie you. Not terribly difficult. Not even 30 minutes of reading. The first question that comes to my mind? What would happen to schools if […]
Q3 2024 QCEW suggests employment was considerably weaker than we thought last year – by New Deal democrat This will be income, spending, and housing week, but that won’t start until tomorrow. While there’s no news today, there was an important update to employment data last week; namely, the QCEW for Q3 of last year. […]
God has a plan and Congress does not. November 2024 and the election is over. Rep. Mark Alford, a Lake Winnebago Republican, won a second term in Congress Tuesday, gliding to an easy election win in Missouri’s heavily conservative 4th Congressional District. The Associated Press called the race for Alford at 9:24 p.m. At the […]
The 2024 Election Voting numbers are shown below. I did break down the votes for others so you could see them. A big factor in Trump winning was a smaller turnout in 2024 as compared to 2020. There was a slight increase in voting for others. Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections In 2020, […]
– by New Deal democrat Existing home sales have been flat in the general range of 3.85 -4.10 million annualized for two years, and that continued in January, as on a monthly basis sales decreased -4.9% to 40.8 million from an upwardly revised December number of 4.29 million annualized: The slightly better numbers in the […]