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

October JOLTS report: yet one more month in the ongoing decelerating trend

October JOLTS report: yet one more month in the ongoing decelerating trend  – by New Deal democrat  All of the major metrics in this month’s JOLTS report for October continued to show deceleration. Here are openings (blue), hires (red), and quits (gold), all normed to 100 just before the pandemic: As you can see, at […]

Oral argument December 23 2023, Harrington v. Purdue Pharma

Court conflicted over Purdue Pharma bankruptcy plan that shields Sacklers from liability, SCOTUSblog, Amy Howe. Conflicted? There is nothing to be conflicted about with Purdue and the US Opioid Epidemic. As was pointed out repeatedly. The Supporting Facts Leading to the Cause of the Opioid Epidemic is pretty simple. Purdue promoted the use of opioids […]

A big increase holds up construction spending in October; and construction spending is holding up the economy

On a YoY basis manufacturing is the star of the show. But note from the historical graph that residential construction previously has turned down first, with manufacturing and other non-residential construction lagging (likely because of long lead times and the extended duration of completing projects). A big increase holds up construction spending in October; and […]

You keep using that word . . .

In the film, “The Princess Bride,” Wally Shawn repeatedly exclaims “inconceivable.” Finally, Mandy Patinkin (as Inigo Montoya) replies: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Whenever GOP politicians announce their belief that the age for Social Security and Medicare Benefits should be raised, the mainstream media […]

Basic research and the origins of CRISPR gene editing

I’ve always done basic research. I’ve never done any research specifically aimed at a clinical goal. I’ve never patented anything I’ve done. None of that motivated my curiosity. I’ve been a medical school professor for over 36 years and was Principal Investigator on three NIH grants and one from the American Cancer Society, and I […]

Native American child poverty doubled in 2022

This is a combination of two different posts. The first part is by the NCRC, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. It offers up a wealth of detail expressed in numbers defining the issues confounding Native Americans. It is very brief and I would hope you follow the link to a larger array of statistics defining […]

CRISPR to the rescue!

The Boston Globe has an article announcing the imminent approval of Casgevy, a CRISPR-based treatment for sickle cell disease that has already been approved in Britain. It is hard to overstate how transformative CRISPR has been for genetics research, and how promising it is for gene therapy. Sickle cell disease was always the low-hanging fruit, […]

AI Understands The Importance Of Independent Congressional Rules

“AI Understands The Importance Of Independent Congressional Rules,” Exposing The Underpinnings Of A Broken Government, J. P. McJefferson The Artificial Intelligence (AI) application ChatGPT understands the importance of independent reviews of Congressional Rules. ChatGPT says independent reviews are, “essential for various reasons.” Too bad “Real Intelligence (RI)” can’t seem to recognize those essential reasons. A […]

New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators for November 27 – December 1 plus ISM Manufacturing

Weekly Indicators for November 27 – December 1 at Seeking Alpha; plus a comment on the ISM manufacturing report  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The coincident data continues quite strong, and the long leading indicators are increasingly “less bad,” which is something that happens when recessions are […]