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

County shows higher levels of PFAS in blood than the U.S. population

The DHHS report (Michigan) found age, gender and other factors contributed to differing PFAS blood levels Kyle Davidson @ Michigan Advance Angry Bear: Shortly before we left Michigan for other digs. the pollution of water ways due to PFAS was coming more to light where we lived in Livingston County as well as other parts […]

What is Wealth?

The wealth of people and the wealth of nations Originally Published at Wealth Economics If you read this blog much, you’ll find many careful definitions of terms — something that the economics profession is terrible at. A blog called Wealth Economics really has to start at the top, with wealth. So here it is. “The only real, true wealth is…” You hear that […]

Housing construction rebounds in February, as permits and starts are stable and rebounding

 – by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog Yesterday I wrote of how Fed rate hikes had not translated into a decline in the amount of housing under construction, and without that I did not see how a recession could occur. And in reaction to January’s housing construction report I concluded, “To signify a likely […]

AI and lung cancer prognosis

To follow up on an earlier post on the future of artificial intelligence, AI has been making serious inroads in radiological imaging for a while. Unsurprisingly, histological imaging is the next frontier, and AI is conquering that as well. A subset of lung cancer patients will see metastatic spread to their brains. A recent study […]

Manufacturing and construction vs. the still-inverted yield curve

 – by New Deal democrat at the Bonddad Blog Prof. Menzie Chinn at Econbrowser makes the point that the yield curve is still inverted, and has not yet eclipsed the longest previous time between onset of such an inversion and a recession. So he believes the threat of recession is still on the table. And […]

Will AI take all the jobs?

Noah Smith has a blog post arguing that AI won’t take away all the jobs from humans. It’s a clever and well-written post that deserves your attention. Here are some money grafs: “So as AI gets better and better, and gets used for more and more different tasks, the limited global supply of compute will […]

Open Thread March 17 2024, January and February were rough months for inflation

Employ America’s current corecast is for a 2.86% YoY core PCE print for February. The six-month growth rate of core PCE, which was under 2% in December, should now be over 3% in February. Core services ex-housing inflation will be up on a year-on-year basis versus the previous meeting. Many FOMC members, especially among the moderates in […]

Death of the 6% commission

Apparently, the National Association of Realtors has agreed to eliminate rules on commissions. “The NAR, which represents more than 1 million Realtors, also agreed to put in place a set of new rules. One prohibits agents’ compensation from being included on listings placed on local centralized listing portals known as multiple listing services, which critics […]