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

A First World Problem

An archetypal first world problem is that we sites have (all?) decided to add two factor authentication (as the earlier first world problem of requiring irritating passwords with capital letters and special! symbols doesn’t work well enough anymore). This didn’t use to be a problem when they offered to send the 6-digit one time code […]

Stirring the Politics in California

This is rich and can not get much worse in BS spewing forth by political interests. Fox News Host Claps Back at Conservatives’ Controversial Claims About Cause of California Fires, Parade As conspiracy theories about the origins of the Los Angeles fires continue to spread, Fox News host  Jessica Tarlov slammed her colleagues on The Five over their claims that […]

December jobs report: ho ho ho, Santa brought a gift – but with a couple of lumps of coal mixed in

– by New Deal democrat My theme for the past several years as to employment has been “deceleration,” as in a gradual cooldown from white hot to red hot to hot to warm. But at some point past “warm,” we get to lukewarm, and then cool, and then chilly. In other words, if it continues […]

Climate change and the insurance industry

A Facebook friend just posted this: “So wildfires and the threat of wildfires is a part of our lives. Our homeowner’s insurance company, American National Property and Casualty (ANPAC) has notified us they are pulling out of New Mexico because their claims (especially fire claims) are higher than their reserves and they can’t cover the […]

The Final Act

I think Joyce titled this properly . . . If you have not read the leadup to SCOTUS telling Trump no, they are not going to block the release, this may suffice. Attorney Joyce Vance does a good review of what took place to the final answer from SCOTUS. Towards the end you can read […]

Is Jay Bhattacharya a libertarian?  Does it matter?

Is Jay Bhattacharya a libertarian?  Does it matter? Jay Bhattacharya was an author of the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued that we should let covid spread freely among healthy people to reach herd immunity as quickly as possible.  The elderly and those whose health made them vulnerable to covid should be given “focused protection”.  Bhattacharya […]

Initial Jobless Claims Declined

Jobless claims still rocked by seasonality; native born unemployment rate of under 4% forecast  – by New Deal democrat Due to today’ official Day of Mourning for the late President Jimmy Carter, initial and continuing claims were released yesterday, but since I didn’t cover it then, let’s catch up now on the normal day. It […]

Housing Bubble, Mortgage Debt, and GDP

This is a good take on the percentage of debt many homeowners are carrying as a percentage of GDP. I would think somewhere along the line, individual income plays a role in all of his. What Bill is telling us is the same hazards of lending are not as pronounced this time. Either banks, etc. […]