The right-wing mantra is that private enterprise is always more efficient than government. As far as I can tell, private enterprise is more efficient at extracting dollars from citizens, yes. And banks have proven to be efficient at extracting bail-outs when their judgement leads to insolvency. Recently, the bankruptcy of for-profit Steward Health Care closed […]
Last year genetically modified mosquitoes were released in Djibouti. The technology is new and the biology is interesting, but I am most interested in the politics. I am late to this story, since it was reported months ago. They released male Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes which bear a female lethal gene — they mated with females […]
1st Look at Local Housing Markets in December – by Bill McBride Calculated Risk Newsletter NOTE: The tables for active listings, new listings and closed sales all include a comparison to December 2019 for each local market (some 2019 data is not available). This is the first look at several early reporting local markets in […]
Truck sales sound a warning – by New Deal democrat Twenty years ago Prof. Edward Leamer made a big splash with a speech to the Fed in which he proclaimed that “Housing IS the Business Cycle,” highlighting how downturns in the housing sector tended to lead recessions by an average of 7 quarters. For today’s […]
Compare the above numeric in the title to the 96% of employees in the highest 10% of wage earners. having access to employer sponsored healthcare. In 2022, seventy percent of private sector workers had access to medical care benefits. Less than half of them obtained coverage that way (a take-up rate of just 66%). As […]
Key findings about U.S. immigrants. Look at the first chart, you will see this is not the first time so many immigrants are arriving in the United States. What is occurring today is less than what occurred in 1890 (first paragraph) as a percentage of the present population. The United States has long had more […]
Economically weighted ISM indexes for December forecast continued expansion – by New Deal democrat We got two significant economic releases this morning. First, let’s take a look at the ISM services index. I’ll examine the November JOLTS report separately. Recall that services are about 75% of the economy. Thus, even if goods production is contracting, […]
The upshot of a Republican led Congress threatening Medicaid kind of makes sense. They can’t threaten Musk, Zuckerman, or the other bunch of billionaires. They would pay for that occurrence. So, in order to look good they pick on those who have little political clout. They are not going to loudly mention how they cleaned […]
I don’t listen to Spotify, but lots of my friends do. I had been spoiled for decades in St. Louis by the community radio station KDHX that broadcast lots of new music in many genres. But now that most of the KDHX DJs I listened to have quit or been fired as the management turned […]
November JOLTS report adds to the data showing continued labor market deterioration – by New Deal democrat The second of this morning’s reports was the JOLTS survey for November. Like many other statistics concerning jobs, the JOLTS series have been deceleration for several years. The question now is whether they level off or continue to […]