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

Weekly Indicators for September 20 – 24 at Seeking Alpha

 by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for September 20 – 24 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. With Delta definitely receding, it appears it had no meaningful impact on the consumer economy. What *is* continuing to happen, however, is that transportation bottlenecks are continuing to drive up related prices to […]

Returning to work and unemployment benefits

Diane Lim writes an analysis of the economic theory of the marginal incentives people have to go back to work at her blog EconomistMom. Worth a visit: Quote: “Get ready to see lots of press on the ending of pandemic unemployment benefits in some parts of the country and what it shows about how much […]

Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act Improves the ACA for All Incomes

President Biden’s temporary ARPA Improves ACA Subsidies through 2022. xpostfactoid: Will 60-64 year-olds have a choice between Medicare and Obamacare? What will that look like?, ARP puts more ‘affordable’ in the Affordable Care Act | healthinsurance.org and How the American Rescue Plan Act will boost marketplace premium subsidies | healthinsurance.org If you have not been […]

New home sales continue rebound in August, as price increases continue slight deceleration

New home sales continue rebound in August, as price increases continue slight deceleration Housing is a long leading sector of the economy, and new home sales, while very noisy and heavily revised, tend to lead all of the other housing indicators. [Note: FRED hasn’t updated its charts with this morning’s information, so graphs below do […]

Reconciliation and Climate-Smart Agriculture

Angry Bear’s Mike Smith; I am a little baffled by our governments assessment of agriculture. Just today they released a few details about paying farmers to plant cover crop, as per this article here. House Budget Plan Offers Big Injection of Funds in USDA Conservation Programs House Budget Plan Offers Big Injection of Funds in […]

Subpoenas Issued, Focusing on Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection

As a subscriber to Professor Heather Cox – Richardson’s “Letters From An American,” I have access to each daily article. And as a follow up to yesterday’s “Letters From An American,” today’s, September 23, 2021 submission gives additional detail to the amount of effort made to subvert the January 6th certification of the election by […]

New Housing Starts and Building Permits Rose in August

New Housing Starts and Building Permits Rose in August on Increased Apartment Construction, Commenter and Blogger RJS, MarketWatch 666 Microsoft Word – newresconst_auto_text_202108.docx (census.gov), The August report on New Residential Construction (pdf) from the Census Bureau indicated that their widely watched estimate of new housing units that were started during the month was at a seasonally adjusted […]

Online Voting

Online Voting  Yes, a wonderful innovation!!!  No, I had not heard of this before, although maybe somebody reading this had encountered it.  So, where is this fabulous innovation being adopted?  Why Mother Russia!  So polls showed the United Russia Party that supports Vladimir Putin getting only 30% support for the Duma election that just happened.  […]

Bungling the Debt Ceiling

“Bungling The Debt Ceiling,” EconoSpeak, Barkley Rosser It looks like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is bungling the matter of raising (or suspending) the debt ceiling, coming due in mid-October supposedly. He could have tied it to reconciliation in August, but decided not to, intent on getting GOPster on board with participating in doing it. But […]