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

“Multi-year lows for total crude supply and oil & products supply”

Commenter and Blogger RJS, Perspective: I (RJS) suspect some of the inventory pullback has to do with tax strategies, but we’ve had all this sitting near multiyear lows going in, so they’re worth noting. I checked googled, & I don’t see anyone else reporting these lows, even at sites like oilprice.com. They’re probably on deadlines to […]

Where we are now, and where we are probably going

Coronavirus dashboard for year-end 2021: the Graph of the Year, where we are now, and where we are probably going At the end of the 2nd year of the pandemic, a little self-assessment of what I got right and wrong, where we are and where we are probably going. The one thing I got wrong […]

Paul Samuelson On Knut Wicksell

Paul Samuelson On Knut Wicksell  Something I have been doing for several years now is serving as Senior Coeditor of the Fourth Edition of the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, with the original one published back in 1894 in London (my coeditors are Matias Vernengo and Esteban Perez). As part of this effort, a multi-year […]

Single Payer Healthcare Financing – Part 3

PNHP Single Payer Healthcare Financing Series, Kip Sullivan JD As you can determine for yourself, this is the last Part of the Series by Kip Sullivan. I hope you have been listening to everything and reading being presented. A lot of detail here about what is wrong with Commercial Healthcare, Managed Care, and Medicare Advantage. […]

Russell Baker

Also at dinner tonight, we discussed funny essays.  My contribution was a famous piece called Francs and Beans by New York Times columnist Russell Baker, which begins like this: As chance would have it, the very evening Craig Claiborne ate his historic $4,000 dinner for two with 31 dishes and nine wines in Paris, a […]

Snarky reviews

Tonight at dinner we discussed snarky reviews, which brought back memories. I was raised in New York City, which was usually fantastic, at least when it wasn’t terrifying.  One of the great things about it was the music.  I saw Lou Reed at the Bottom Line in 1976 or so.  And a few years later […]

The labor market closes out 2021 on the best note yet

The labor market closes out 2021 on the best note yet The final economic data in 2021 was this morning’s report on initial and continued jobless claims. And the good news for workers continued. New claims declined back under 200,000 to 198,000, the best pandemic showing except for November 20’s 194,000, and December 4’s 188,000. […]

A Free Market is Always Full of Cheap Ideas

A Free Market is Always Full of Cheap Ideas I may have scoffed in the past at the notion of “the marketplace of ideas” but I am coming around to think that maybe it’s not such a bad metaphor. Back in the days of primitive economy, families, clans, tribes produced and consumed their own subsistence. […]

Single Payer Health Care Financing – Part 2

PNHP Single Payer Healthcare Financing Series, Kip Sullivan JD Kip Sullivan is known for his commentary on commercial healthcare and healthcare insurance. He is one of the few who can honestly depict what the issues are today and where we are going with healthcare in the US. In this segment Kip discusses the overuse of […]