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

The Dakotas already appear to be shambling towards herd immunity

Coronavirus dashboard for March 3: as good news on vaccinations accumulates, the Dakotas already appear to be shambling towards herd immunity There is more and more good news on the vaccination front. In addition to the fact that the single-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine has been approved, President Biden has made use of the Defense […]

GOP Voting Rights Act Position Falls Apart

Tuesday brief update on Arizona and GOP oral arguments in SCOTUS. “Hardcore GOP Position For Defanging VRA Falls Apart Under SCOTUS Questioning,” Tierney Sneed, TPM The Arizona case before the Supreme Court involves two restrictive voting practices in the state which invalidates a vote: – Arizona’s 2016 ban on most third-party mail-ballot collection, and – […]

Texas freeze; oil refining and distillate exports drop most since Harvey . . .

Commenter R.J.S.: Record drops in US oil output, US oil exports, distillates’ output on Texas freeze as US burns 15% of natural gas inventories in one week . . US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration for the week ending February 19th indicated that because the big drops in our oil exports and our oil refining associated […]

Manufacturing and housing – turn even hotter

Two leading sectors of the economy – manufacturing, and housing – turn even hotter Last month I wrote that both the manufacturing and housing sectors were “on fire.” If anything, this month they turned white hot, with both construction spending and ISM manufacturing data at levels not seen in years. The overall ISM manufacturing reading […]

Good decision, big institutional problem on minimum wage work-around

From WAPO: Senior Democrats are abandoning a backup plan to increase the minimum wage through a corporate tax penalty, after encountering numerous practical and political challenges in drafting their proposal over the weekend, according to two people familiar with the internal deliberations. . . . Economists and tax experts have said that the tax outlined […]

From My Wandering Internet Reads

Just something a little bit different today that I found while reading techie stuff. The hurting of a person as described by one care giver. There is nowhere Black people can go to not be inside a carceral gaze or at risk of experiencing police brutality. …And we, in healthcare, have to [start] building that […]

Canceling Outstanding Student Loans in Default

Some State AGs Take Action Seventeen State Attorney Generals signed and sent a letter to Congressional leadership (Schumer, Pelosi, McConnell, McCarthy) calling on Congress (Friday February 19) to pressure President Joe Biden to cancel up to $50,000 in federal student load debt for borrowers as a part of pandemic relief. The AGs write: “As the […]

Weekly Indicators for February 22 – 26

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for February 22 – 26 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. After months of virtually no changes in any of the time frames, suddenly there is activity in all of them. Some of it: – is short term noise due to the disaster in […]