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

The cat rescue myth and vaccines

My dad, an MIT-trained chemical engineer, was a practical man. He was scornful of efforts to rescue cats out of trees. His response was: “Look around; how many cat skeletons do you see in trees.” Setting aside the merits of the cat rescue argument, the larger point is to use critical thinking to assess whether […]

More evidence of a positive “regime change” in jobless claims: is it tied to the immigration crackdown?

 – by New Deal democrat We will get the very important personal income and spending updates for the government shutdown months later this morning, which should finally tell us whether or not there was a mini-recession during that time. In the meantime, let’s take our regular weekly look at jobless claims, as to which, to reiterate, […]

Section 122 Could Temporarily Replace up to 73% of IEEPA Revenues

Another interesting piece by Federal Tax Policy Vice President Erica York at the Tax Foundation. One premise . . . “an analysis suggests the administration could replace 56% to 73% of IEEPA revenue using Section 122 tariffs.” Over the past week, we received final tariff collections data for 2025 from the Treasury Department, a new Beige Book from the Fed, and a […]

Mark Carney speaks to the World and Canada

“Leaders realize they will not be able to ‘manage’ Trump for the remainder of his term. Reckoning with the fact that the systems of international order that the US helped craft are crumbling as a result” of his controlling personality. “Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney,” Davos Switzerland The full text of a speech by the […]

Stale data watch: construction spending for October — more “green shoots”?

– by New Deal democrat Originally housing permits and starts through December were supposed to be updated this morning, but that has now been put off another week. In the meantime, we did get some data, albeit stale, about the important leading sector of construction, in the form of the construction spending report through October. And […]

Paying for Social Security Redux

A rerun of a S.S. commentary by Dale Coberly. “HOW TO PAY FOR SOCIAL SECURITY” was written by Dale Coberly and posted by Dan Crawford on Angry Bear September 9, 2010. Of course, Dan died as well as Bruce Webb, Dale retired from Angry Bear after doing years of excellent commentary, I have not talked […]

Badly Treated White People

Another place I subscribe to is “Kareem Takes on the News.” I can always find an interesting opinion being offered up by the former college and professional basketball player. Who would have thought such? Today or this day (older commentary) Kareem is discussing how “white people were badly treated.” Such mistreatment is being presented and […]

About social security

For years, Dale Coberly posted on AB about Social Security, separating myth from reality and reminding readers of the reality. Dale stopped posting here a while ago, so I’ll take up where he left off. I still see folks claiming that Congress “stole” Social Security, that SS is a Ponzi scheme and that SS is […]