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

AI: Manhattan Project or Jurassic Park?

Let’s hand the microphone to Garrett Graff: “Most people think of Jurassic Park as a cautionary tale for science, when really it’s a cautionary tale for corporate trust and safety teams, board oversight, and regulatory compliance. The dinosaurs’ entirely predictable rampage should really be seen as a failure of the security teams and the fence […]

A “quick and dirty” look at anticipated consumer inflation in July

– by New Deal democrat Tomorrow we’ll get the CPI report for July. At first, I thought this might resume the upward spike of April and May — but maybe not. My “quick and dirty” way to create a back of the envelope estimate of consumer inflation is to divide the change in gas prices (conservatively) […]

Quote of the day

The Citizenship Clause was indeed written to repudiate Dred Scott, the 1857 Supreme Court decision holding that Black people could never be citizens. But the Reconstruction Congress did not swap one caste rule for a narrower one; it extended the promise to “every free-born person in this land.” The idea wasn’t just to retroactively protect […]

One State Does It Right – Colorado State legislature extends supplemental state ACA subsides thru 2027

Quite a few people are dropping healthcare insurance because they can not afford it. If they are above the limits for subsidies, they are risking themselves and family to a financial catastrophe. I have done this myself when the children were gone and I was without a position. One state has chosen to support people […]

Scenes, both positive and negative, from the July employment report

– by New Deal democrat As per usual, there’s no economic news today, the first Monday after the employment report. So let’s dig into some detail about what was naughty and what was nice from Friday’s anemic report. Let me start with the naughty, and in particular the -50,000 job losses (seasonally adjusted) in local education. […]

Trump publicizes the vaccine-ASD fable

From Medpage Today: “Speaking about the order at the Oval Office on Monday, Trump repeatedly suggested the number or timing of vaccines could play a role in rising rates of autism spectrum disorder . . .” Uh, no. What’s been rising is the rate of ASD *diagnoses,” due to changes in classification criteria and increased […]

Resisting Trump and the Green Lantern theory of Congress

According to the political data site fifty plus one, Trump currently has a net disapproval of 24 points.  At the same time, the Democrats remain unpopular.  The net disapproval of the Democrats has hovered around 15 points, about the same as the Republicans.  The Democrats lead in the generic ballot, but only by 6 points […]

Surge in the Uninsured Patients at Hospitals, etc

Brief review as to what is happening in healthcare since Trump whacked ACA insurance for roughly 3 million citizens initially. More to come for the uninsured as this plays out. Costs did increase at hospitals and other healthcare sites (doctors, clinics, etc.). For the millions voting for Tr__p, I hope this is what you wanted. […]