Cheap trips to the lakes We are experiencing climate change with a vengeance in British Columbia. For the past four summers, we have had horrific wildfires that send smoke all the way from the interior to the west coast of Vancouver Island. Last summer, we had a record-breaking “heat dome” that killed over 600 people […]
Housing construction continues to stabilize, but with record bottleneck in starts Last month I highlighted that housing constructions were stabilizing, following the stabilization in interest rates. This month continued that trend. In October, housing starts (green in the graphs below) decreased -0.7% m/m, while the more leading total permits (blue) increased 4.0%. The less volatile […]
Dems Continue To Sink Despite Improving Economy On the first page of today’s Washington Post was reported a poll showing that when a random sample was asked, 46% said they would vote for a generic Republican candidate for Congress versus 43% for a generic Democratic candidate. Given reported further pro-GOP gerrymandering, if this were to […]
Now *that’s* good news: another blockbuster real retail sales report Yesterday I wrote that the financial and production sides of the economy still looked very positive and that today’s retail sales number would be especially important. Well, they were very positive, clocking in at up 1.7% month over month in October. Even after inflation, “real” […]
Letters from an American re-posted November 16, 2021Heather Cox Richardson Nov 17 Today, President Joe Biden hit the road to sell the benefits of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill he signed into law yesterday. In Woodstock, New Hampshire, today, standing at a bridge deemed structurally unsafe—one of the 215 unsafe bridges in New Hampshire—Biden […]
Coronavirus dashboard for November 12: regional variations and the winter wave There’s a glitch in 91-Divoc collecting Johns Hopkins data, so the State by State totals have not been updated for several days, but here is Our World in Data’s update for the US as a whole: As of yesterday, cases are up only 3.5% […]
Josh Marshall has a good post about Covid 19 boosters. His site www.talkingpointsmemo.com is the other site for which I pay actual money. Unfortunately, I see the good post is for subscribers (like me) only, so I will just have to show my respect by free using the hell out of it. Josh wants a […]
Dear Democrats: Yes, inflation is a problem [Update: I see where Larry Summers has obviously read my piece below, and says, “I agree with NDD!” (Just teasing)] In the past few days, I have seen a spate of articles and tweets from prominent partisans and economists telling Democrats not to worry about inflation, either because […]