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

The economy during Biden’s tenure has not been kind to young person’s looking to buy or rent property

 – by New Deal democrat I saw a graph within the past few days (which unfortunately I did not make a copy of) indicating Biden’s polling problems are not against Trump per se so much as they are the failure of Biden to consolidate support among young voters, especially voters of color, vs. Trump’s having […]

Oversized Vehicles of Transportation

Parking where you should not park with your oversized toy. This picture was also on Reddit. I believe the original pic(s) are from here: “Driver shares photo high-lighting a parking problem with oversized vehicles: ‘These cars are pointless,’” The Cooldown. Pickup trucks have become incredibly popular in Arizona, with a Planning Commission member noting that […]

Increasing manufacturing in May. Expectation is less in June due to FED Rate

May 2024 manufacturing report. Manufacturing was up in May after following two months of it being down in April and March. There is belief, manufacturing will be down in June as the FED did not reduce the FED Rate. I also suspect manufacturing will not take off in June. However, I believe it will be […]

Wage Growth Is Declining Across Sectors, but Not at the Same Rate

This particular graph was pulled from an April 2024 Morning Star article. The source of it being the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It depicts wage growth before during and after the Pandemic. In particular I believe the government did quite well in providing for and protecting its citizens during the pandemic when many people could […]

Drone Swarms

Drones are changing warfare. They are cheap and deadly. I am thinking about their use in stopping a marine invasion. The reason is that I am concerned that it is not clear enough to Xi JinPing that an invasion of Taiwan would be a huge error. The problem with anti-ship drones is that they are […]

A Natalist, Nativist, Nationalist Case for the Child Tax Credit

One of the policies with the greatest effect on poverty is the ild tax credit (expanded and made fully refundable by the American Reesue Plan). It caused a 44% reduction of child poverty. UNfortunately it was a tempory one year program (approptiate for stimulus bu not for an always needed prgram). It was not renewed and there […]

Good news on production is overshadowed by the yellow caution flag of flagging real retail sales

 – by New Deal democrat There was good news and not so good news in this morning’s two important data releases.  I’ll start with the good news. Both total industrial production and its manufacturing component increased a sharp 0.9% in May. Even after downward revisions of -0.4% in March and -0.3% in April, both were […]

Ten Fundamental Economic (Mis)understandings

It’s all about the words . . . by Steve Roth Originally Published at Wealth Economics This article was first published on Cameron Murray’s great Fresh Economic Thinking. It’s slightly revised here. Maybe I’m just dense, but when I started studying economics roughly twenty years ago, I immediately ran into a bunch of basic concepts that […]

Are the conservative Justices playing politics?

Probably, and that’s bad for straightforwardly political reasons.  Arrogant, naively moralistic Justices would be much less effective. Last week the conservative court preserved access to the critical abortion drug mifepristone.  But they relied on a procedural technicality and thus preserved their ability to limit use of the drug after the upcoming election.  Refusing to reach […]

Swiss summit kick-starts Ukraine peace process

I have following the SWI for a period of time. When I get a newspaper, it makes for some interesting read. This particular article discusses a potential meeting of ninety countries. The peace process was initiated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asking the Swiss to initiate such a conference. I can not imagine what he […]