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

The only critical number is the doses of vaccine administered

January 2021 jobs report: a strong divergence between very weak job gains, but a big drop in unemployment; but the only critical number is the doses of vaccine administered  For the past several weeks, based on the increase in initial jobless claims, I have warned that the December employment report might have a negative number, […]

Coronavirus dashboard: Groundhog Day

Coronavirus dashboard: Groundhog Day Today is Groundhog Day, America’s version of the midwinter festival, where people can at least begin to look ahead to the coming of spring in the near future. That’s a good analogy for where we are in the COVID pandemic. Let me start with the ghastly news.First, there have been over 26 […]

Larry Summers has Concerns

Early this morning the Senate passed a budget resolution telling committees to spend an additional $ 1.9 T on Covid relief. Yesterday, Larry Summers wrote an op-ed expressing concerns about the imminent resolution. Like many many many people, I disagree in part. Oddly, I think I disagree less strongly with Summers than most US adults […]

Doing the world a favor. For Michael.

Doing the world a favor. For Michael. I did indeed post Dilke’s work. Then I reposted it. Then, ten years later, Contributions to Political Economy reprinted Dilke’s pamphlet, along with an essay about it by Giancarlo de Vivo. And forthcoming in the next issue of CPE is my article on the “Ambivalence of Disposable Time.” Thank you, Michael, for asking me to […]

RIP Michael Perelman

RIP Michael Perelman  I have just learned that old friend Michael Perelman has “passed quietly in his sleep” (not reported of what) on September 21, 2020, having been born on October 1, 1939, so just shy of his 81st birthday.  I knew Michael for a long time and considered him a personal friend, although it […]

N95s

Turns out that the best weapon against the COVID-19 virus was, and still is, the N95 face mask. If this wasn’t known from the start, it should have been. We, the greatest nation on earth, the greatest nation that has ever been, were, and still are, dependent on China, and South Korea, for N95 masks. […]

Covid Vaccination One Dose or Two iV

I didn’t expect this to be a series of posts, but there is news since I wrote post number III. There is a partial change of subject, because the news concerns the Oxford/AstraZeneca adenovirus based vaccine and not the mRNA based vaccines which I discussed before. In the UK they decided to delay the second […]

Shades of Greene

Even Scalia said that there could be restrictions, so how is that someone as certifiable as Marjorie Taylor-Greene got that gun permit? Anywhere? Even Milledgeville, Capital of Georgia, 1804 to 1868? Too bad that the founders didn’t see fit to keep someone so unfit out of Congress. “No Person shall be a Representative who shall […]