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

Covering the Sahara Desert with Solar Panels to Fight Climate Disaster?

Juan Cole at Informed Comment has a post up by Will de Freitas Should we cover the Sahara Desert with Solar Panels to Fight Climate Disaster? A map of North Africa is shown, with a surprisingly small box somewhere in Libya or Algeria shaded in. An area of the Sahara this size, the caption will […]

Interesting Healthcare Outcomes . . .

“Opioid Overdose Now Provides 1 in 6 Donor Hearts,” Ashley Lyles, MedPage Today Overdose-death donors have accounted for a rapidly growing proportion of cardiac allografts, with a 14-fold increase from about 1% in 2000 to now 16.9%, “consistent with the rising opioid epidemic,” reported Nader Moazami, MD, of New York University Langone Health in New […]

May jobs report: this is the kind of report you see at negative inflection points

May jobs report: this is the kind of report you see at negative inflection points HEADLINES: +75,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate unchanged at 3.6% U6 underemployment rate declined -0.2% from 7.3% to 7.1% (new expansion low) Leading employment indicators of a slowdown or recession   I am highlighting these because many leading indicators overall […]

CORE and Periphery in the Reform of Econ 101

CORE and Periphery in the Reform of Econ 101 Thanks to Greg Mankiw, I’ve seen a preview of the piece by Sam Bowles and Wendy Carlin that will be published in a forthcoming Journal of Economic Literature.  It’s apparently part of a roundtable on the teaching of introductory economics, and not surprisingly Bowles and Carlin focus on the freely […]

A Bernie Sanders Narrative for Seniors

A Bernie Sanders Narrative for Seniors What follows is some unsolicited advice for the Sanders campaign. Politico has an important piece on the downside of the extraordinary age bias in Sanders’ support.  Like a teeter totter, the large advantage Sanders enjoys among younger voters is counterbalanced by his dismal showing among the older crowd.  The article […]

75 Years After The Longest Day

75 Years After The Longest Day Yes, I am watching “The Longest Day” on TMC.  Have not seen it for decades, but this 75th anniversary of D-Day seems to be the time to do it.  This will be a rambling post all over the place.  I note that according to the film, it was German […]

A Very Erroneous Chart in the Economic Report of the President

A Very Erroneous Chart in the Economic Report of the President Menzie Chinn has been reading the latest Economic Report of the President and finds a very erroneous and misleading chart, which is figure 1-6 from this this document (see page 45), which states: Equipment investment, in particular, exhibited a pronounced spike in the fourth quarter of 2017, […]

The slowdown cometh

by New Deal democrat The slowdown cometh I submitted a long post on the above to Seeking Alpha. They haven’t put it up yet. When they do, I’ll link to it here.   UPDATE: Here’s the link. Long story short: you all know that a year ago I forecast a slowdown by about mid-year this year. Everything except […]

“While Considering Medicare For All: Policies For Making Health Care In The United States Better”

Robert Kocher and Donald M. Berwick “While Considering Medicare For All: Policies For Making Health Care In The United States Better,” Health Affairs Dr. Donald Berwick is the former Director of Medicare and Medicaid who talked about waste in Medicare and Doctors knowing such waste exists. “It is unlikely that the United States will move […]