The State of the Economy in Real Time, Election Eve and Year Ahead

Christiane Baumeister shared this snapshot as of the week ending on Oct 29, 2022 compared to the same week one year ago, measured in growth rates relative to long-run national average growth, as measured by the Buameister/Leiva-Leon/Sims weekly economic conditions index.

This index is described in this post and has been cited in numerous posts on this blog.

What are the prospects for recession at the state level, based upon the index?

Hence, while there’s not currently a high real time probability of recession aggregated up from the state level, the 52 week ahead forecast is for rising probability.

Here are the latest readings as of today.

Figure 1: Lewis-Mertens-Stock (NY Fed) Weekly Economic Index (blue), Woloszko (OECD) Weekly Tracker (tan), Baumeister-Leiva-Leon-Sims Weekly Economic Conditions Index for US plus 2% trend (green). Lilac shading denotes a hypothetical 2022H1 recession. Source: NY Fed via FREDOECDWECI, and author’s calculations.

242 thoughts on “The State of the Economy in Real Time, Election Eve and Year Ahead

  1. pgl

    Marjorie Taylor Greene pulls a JohnH:

    https://www.newsweek.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-compares-invading-russians-us-migrants-1760507

    Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has offered a controversial comparison: U.S.-bound migrants to Russian forces invading Ukraine. Greene made the remark during a press conference on her resolution to investigate U.S. aid to Ukraine on Thursday. The Georgia Republican called for aid to the war-torn country to end, while accusing the U.S. of fighting a “proxy war with Russia.” She argued that Americans should be more concerned with migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, which she has described as an “invasion.”

    Yea I get that this witch with a B is terrified at the thought of any innocent hard working Hispanic living next to her. I get she is beyond racist. But none of the immigrants had carrying military assault weapons or raping elderly American women. But Putin’s war criminals are. She seems intent for just letting Putin carry out his war crimes. Then again she also wants to free the January 6 domestic terrorists.

    And Kevin McCarthy will have to put up this disgusting nutcase in a prominent place of power when Kevin becomes Speaker? He will indeed be the worst Speaker of the House in our history.

    1. GREGORY BOTT

      Considering Taylor supports corporate and religious groups who traffick and push “migration” to the border, maybe she should commit suicide .

    2. JohnH

      “ The Defense Department has failed its fifth-ever audit, unable to account for more than half of its assets, but the effort is being viewed as a “teachable moment,” according to its chief financial officer.” How many teachable moments do you get? What’s hilarious is that pgl has falsely claimed that DOD passed an audit…talk about coddling wastrels!
      https://news.yahoo.com/defense-department-fails-another-audit-225500728.html

      “ House Republicans Introduce Resolution to Audit Ukraine Aid.” An eminently reasonable goal, since corruption was a big part of the reason the US failed in Vietnam and Afghanistan.
      https://news.antiwar.com/2022/11/17/house-republicans-introduce-resolution-to-audit-ukraine-aid/

      Of course, pgl must be adamantly opposed to auditing aid to Ukraine, one of the most corrupt counties in Europe…because it’s a Republican proposal! According to pgl’s warped thinking, it would be better to continue pouring money down a rat hole than adopt a Republican proposal. If anything should have bi-partisan agreement, this is it.

      1. Anonymous

        the us def dept has never passed an ‘audit’, the fifth failure does not imply failing annual audits, there are no annual audits!!

        the def dept, egged on by a few incongress, established a ‘major’ project to get a handle on the ‘price’ they paid for “equipment”, anything from f-35’s procured on specifications not fully tested to personal clothing….. it was “military equipment valuation” (mev).

        as of 2019, It never got off the ground!!

        there is a ‘book value’ for everything, that is how they ‘value’ the national defense authorization act (ndaa) and how they price appropriations.

        that book value is fiction!

        the problem is price does not equal cost nor “value”, with shoddy testing from parts’ tests to operations tests is the reason the mev failed.

        hunting down where all those things went in ukraine is a windmill that won’t get tilted.

        the pentagon trough is valued by the dividends the shareholders receive.

      2. Barkley Rosser

        JohnH,

        “pouring money down a rat hole,” although that money is delivering the goods, namely Ukraine being able to push back and defeat the Russian invaders. Or is that what you would like to stop?

        1. pgl

          The effort is being led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and supported by a group of Republicans that have been critical of US aid to Ukraine. The resolution’s cosponsors include Reps. Thomas Massie (KY), Matt Gaetz (FL), Barry Moore (AL), Andrew Clyde (GA), and Cory Mills, a representative-elect from Florida.

          Good to know that JohnH thinks this crew are admirable members of the House. Cast of racist deplorables is more like it.

          1. JohnH

            As I said, pgl opposes Republicans’ attempt to account for what the US is spending in Ukraine, because the wrong side proposed it!!!

            Question is, why are Democrats so opposed to knowing where the money went in Ukraine, one of Europe’s most corrupt companies.

          2. pgl

            JohnH
            November 19, 2022 at 5:54 am

            Seriously? You have sided up with a pack of GOP racists? I guess you are championing for Hershel Walker.

          3. JohnH

            More on FTX. : “Bankman-Fried was born in 1992 on the campus of Stanford University into a family of academics. He is the son of Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, both professors at Stanford Law School.[2] His aunt Linda P. Fried is the current dean of Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Bankman-Fried

            Caroline Ellison, SBF’s girlfriend is/was the CEO of Alameda Research, a quantitative trading firm founded by Sam Bankman-FriedEllison is the daughter of Glenn Ellison, the Gregory K. Palm (1970) Professor of Economics at MIT. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Ellison

            Glenn Ellison is a former chair of MIT’s Econ School. His former colleague on the MIT Econ faculty, Gary Gensler, specialized in blockchains there and is now head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

            It’s a great day for economics…corruption at the doorstep of hallowed, ivy clad institutions.

            pgl should love this…it casts lots of aspersions, his specialty!

          4. Barkley Tosser

            JohnH,

            Sorry, but so what that Bankman-Froed and Ellison are the children of academics, the latter of a prominent econ prof? They are not academics themselves. Sorry, you ain’t got nothing with this particular screed.

        2. JohnH

          Rosser…you must be a fan of trickle down economics, too…because a little of the money showered on the wealthy actually reaches the average American!

          No one claimed that some–maybe even most of–the money the US lavished on Ukraine did not reach the troops. But a good chunk probably got siphoned off into offshohre accounts.

          Rosser…try considering who the US is dealing with…
          https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/revealed-anti-oligarch-ukrainian-president-offshore-connections-volodymyr-zelenskiy

          And try considering the massive corruption the US supported in Afghanistan and in its other pointless and futile wars.

          1. pgl

            Hey moron – try actually reading what Barkley has written over at Econospeak before accusing him of being an advocate of supply-side economics. I have to apologize to the rest of the lying trolls here as you surpass everyone of them in utter stupidity and brazen dishonesty.

          2. pgl

            “Online records unearthed by The Grayzone claim tens of millions were raised by FTX for the Ukrainian government, and put to a variety of belligerent uses.”

            This is the essence of your Grayzone story? That a company may have spent $60 million to help Ukrainians fight off Putin’s war crimes? Belligerent uses? Wow – you are a disgusting Putin poodle.

            Now if anyone thinks that $60 million is what brought down FTX – then that person is even dumber than the stupidest troll ever (JohnH).

            Hey Jonnny boy – your Sputnik news writer is pretty pathetic.

          3. pgl

            “The files reveal Zelenskiy participated in a sprawling network of offshore companies, co-owned with his longtime friends and TV business partners. They include Serhiy Shefir, who produced Zelensky’s hit shows, and Shefir’s older brother, Borys, who wrote the scripts. Another member of the consortium is Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend. Bakanov was general director of Zelenskiy’s production studio, Kvartal 95.”

            Production studios? How much wealth does Johnny boy think is there? Highest estimate just over $1 billion but many doubt this at all. Compare that to Gazprom alone, which is worth $4.7 trillion. And that is a small portion of the Russian wealth that Putin not only put offshore but literally stole from the citizens of Russia.

            Johnny boy – keep on digging up your supposed dirt. It is laughable how pathetically weak what your faux sources come up with.

          4. JohnH

            pg, can’t refute the facts in the story, so he just kills the messenger. The Usual piggly, wiggly Character assassination,

          5. JohnH

            pg, can’t refute the facts in the story, so he just kills the messenger. The Usual piggly, wiggly Character assassination.

          6. pgl

            “No one claimed that some–maybe even most of–the money the US lavished on Ukraine did not reach the troops. But a good chunk probably got siphoned off into offshohre accounts.”

            Oh brother – some dumbass reads a story where Zelensky’s motion picture friends may have used a little bit of aggressive tax planning and this dumbass decides that this means Zelensky is now stealing funds from his own troops?

            Yes this is how the warped mind of JohnH comes up with so much utter BS. Johnny – your mommy is calling. She needs you to stop embarrassing the entire family.

          7. Barkley Rosser

            JohnH,

            Unlikw Vietnam and Afghanistan, Ukraine is actually a democracy. Also, it is less corrupt than Russia according to Transparency International.

            Yes, I am sure there is some waste and fraud going on in the arming of Ukraine, but if an audit is going to slow down the arming, to heck with it. The weapons are getting delivered and they are saving Ukrainians from torture and death, with you clearly supporting the latter, you seriously evil scum.

          8. pgl

            “JohnH
            November 19, 2022 at 2:59 pm
            pg, can’t refute the facts in the story, so he just kills the messenger.

            The story was STUPID – just like JohnH. The messenger works for Putin – just like JohnH!

          9. JohnH

            Rosser, you gave me the best laugh of the day! “Unlikw Vietnam and Afghanistan, Ukraine is actually a democracy.” LOL. Orwellian double-speak at its finest! Lucky I didn’t have coffee in my mouth. Reminds me of when Hillary went to Qatar, an absolute monarchy, and had the chutzpah to criticize for its lack of democracy.

            Ukraine is a democracy only if kleptocracies are considered democratic!!!
            https://www.theamericanconservative.com/whitewashing-ukraines-corruption/

          10. pgl

            “Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor at the American Conservative”

            This is Johnny boy’s expert (see Barkley’s comment about Ukraine being a democracy). I guess Johnny boy would have used someone from the Gestapo as his expert on whether was murdering the Jews in the early 1940’s. Seriously – JohnH truly makes a fool out of himself on an hourly basis!

          11. Barkley Tosser

            JohnH,

            Zelenskyy was elected in a fair and democratic election. There are no political prisoners in Ukraine. People opposed to Zelenskyy are not being poisoned or thrown in prison. All of that is happening in Russia.

            According to Transparency International, Russia is the 33th most corrupt out of 180 nations in the world while Ukraine is the 58th. Does Ukraine have a corruption problem? Yes. But it is both less corrupt and more democratic than Russia, and whatever corruption Zelenskyy is involved does not remotely begin to compare to that of Putin.

            And then we have the matter that Russia has invaded Ukraine with no good excuse and is engaging in war crime upon war crime, which cannot be said for Ukraine. You really are horribly evil, Johnh., profoundly and horribly evil. Just exactly how do you sleep at nithg?

          12. JohnH

            Rosser–Ukraine’s laughable democracy: “Ukraine bans largest opposition party”
            https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/06/23/hxae-j23.html

            You might be interested in this: “One less traitor”: Zelensky oversees campaign of assassination, kidnapping and torture of political opposition” Sources for the story include Human Rights Watch and UNHCR.
            https://thegrayzone.com/2022/04/17/traitor-zelensky-assassination-kidnapping-arrest-political-opposition/

            Having elections is not synonymous with having a democracy. Lots of dictators stage elections as a PR exercise. You’re probably old enough to remember the fraudulent elections of 1967 in South Vietnam, staged under the watchful eyes of the LBJ administration. Happens all the time…

          13. Barkley Rosser

            JohnH,

            Remember, although maybe you never knew, that while Hunter Biden was employed by Burisma, his father was urging the Ukrainian attorney general to investigate it for corruption. Sorry, you anit’t got nothing with that one.

            Oh, and Zelenskyy’s supposed vast corruption amounts to connections with one offshorr firm. Uh oh. And we have all known that he does have a favorite oligarch who has supported him and whom he has tried to protect. This compares with the massive set of corrupt siloviki cronies Putin has and his apparent $40 billion in wwalth, which we know should concern you, Mr. Anti-Trickle Down Guy.

          14. Barkley Rosser

            JohnH,

            So it gets pointed out that the invader, Russia, is far more corrupt than the invaded, Ukraine, but you attempt to double down on your various claims of the supposed awfulness of the Ukrainians, while, of course never mentioning the worse awfulness of the Russians.

            Your links to back up your claims are seriously flawed. I will grant one thing: Zelenskyy did ban the largest opposition party. Indeed, during this round of warfare, Ukraine has become less democratic, something we often see in nations deep in the midst of wars, especially ones that outright threaten the very existence of their nations. But there is no comparison between what is going on in Ukraine and what is going on in Russsia, as well as in the Russian-occupied parts of UKraine.

            First off, let me note that Carpenter lied about the relative rankings of Russia and Ukraine on corruption. He cited an out of date Transparency International report. Why did he do this? Well, the current ranking is the one I reported above, which has Ukraine at 58th and Russia as 44th most corrupt out of 180 nations in the world. Your guy is cherry picking data to misrepresent the situation and make Russia look better than it is.

            Then we have this egregious report from Grayzone in Aprio, that is full of wild misrepresentations. These people just outright lie about what is in the links they provide. The one to HUman Rights Watch shows nothing. The one to the UN Report on events prior to the 2022 Russian invasion does whow the Ukrainian government arresting ans in some cases torturing some people. But all of this is in the war zone in the Donbas wae zone, with in fact the Russians and their allies arresting ans torturing even more people in the areas they control in the Donbas. War is hell, and but the illegal inbaders are getting at more people than those dealing with traitors supporting an invader.

            :Let us look at the bigger picture. So I have dug through various sources, including UN reports, on political prisoners. As of 3031, Russia supposedly had 410 while Ukraine had 2. BTW, the US had 26. Oh and China had over 47,000, hot stuff.

            We can also look at what has happened since Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year, again, in violation of both the UN treaty and the Budapest Accords. Zero people have been arrested for pretesting the war in Ukaine, even if the leading opposition party did get banned. But, hey, Lincoln suspended Habeus Corupus in the Civil War and FDP sent ethnic Japanese to concenration camps. In Russia, however, in the first month of the war about 15,000 people were arrested, and several thousand more have been more recently. It is a 15 year sentence to even call it a war.

            And, while it is not getting discussed much, all should keep in mind that in Putin’s effort to save Russia from the NATO-inspired pro trans Satanist Nazi Jeiwish Zelenskyy, his troops killed tens of thousands of Russian-speaking civilians in Mariupol, many of whom were probably pro-Russia at some point.

            Sorry, you just double downed yourself into a moral cesspool.

        3. pgl

          Barkley – this will make you laugh. Check out JohnH’s grayzone link which was written by one Kit Klarenberg.

          Guess who Kit Klarenberg has written for – Sputnik News.

          Seriously – we know JohnH works for Putin but it is hysterical that this really dumb lying clown cannot be bothered to check out who his own sources are!

          1. Dr. Dysmalist

            “…but it is hysterical that this really dumb lying clown cannot be bothered to check out who his own sources are!”

            Or Tankie John-John knows exactly who his sources are but naively, and contrary to much recent evidence, thinks no one will check.

            He’s already made clear that he’s a Putin troll. It’s mind boggling to me how often soi disant “leftists” end up extremely closely aligned with fascists.

      3. pgl

        I never made any such claim that anyone has passed an audit. But yea – this usual BS of yours is all you got for your support of the needless slaughter of innocent Ukrainians. Now I have said people like Marjorie Taylor Greene are the most disgusting people ever – but no, you eclipse her by miles.

        1. JohnH

          pgl actually tried to pass off the successful audit of one part of DOD as representing the whole DOD! I’m going to have to start logging pgl’s preposterous assertions…because he lies constantly with no accountability.

          1. JohnH

            ‘When the Pentagon launched its first-ever independent financial audit back in 2017, backers of accountability in government welcomed it as a major step for a department with a track record of financial boondoggles. But the Defense Department failed that audit – and the next two as well.’ And they STILL can’t pass an audit!!!

            Naturally our faux progressive growth liberal (pgl) sees no problem with that…but he does see a huge problem with Republican attempts to address the problems with new legislation.

            And what exactly is Democrats’ position on auditing US government largesse to Ukraine? MIA!!!

          2. pgl

            Hey Johnny boy – how much is Sputnik News paying you for promoting their garbage? Or are you too stupid to chekc out who this grazyzone fraud you hyped really is?

          3. pgl

            Another transparent lie. I have never commented on this type of stuff. You know it. Everyone knows it. But you toss out this garbage over and over. You truly are a pathetic little child.

          4. Dr. Dysmalist

            Eh, it’s pretty clear that PGL neither wrote nor implied that. Stop reading and commenting in such extremely bad faith. Your already-low reputation around here is sinking faster than a Mango Mussolini gubernatorial candidate.

          5. pgl

            “JohnH
            November 20, 2022 at 9:05 am
            The FTX fiasco is starting to remind me of Jefferey Epstein…without the sex.

            https://twitter.com/dankeeler/status/1519780887893790724

            pgl will argue that there is no indication of impropriety here”

            Maybe you are not getting sex but your obsession with blaming me for the FTX is just your usual stupidity (note how everyone else here is calling you out today) since I have never had a damn thing to do with the FTX ponzi scheme. Now if you played and lost in this scam – do not blame me.

            Seriously dude – look around. EVERYONE here knows your game and they are all sick of your lies. But attack me all you want – I really do not care given you have been the most worthless lying little troll ever.

          6. JohnH

            pgl says that “I have never commented on this type of stuff (DOD audits.) You know it. Everyone knows it.” [this thread.]

            But he did comment on it …a lot!…on this very thread.

            And back on August 22., he commented: “The GAO has never audited the Defense Department? You do lie a lot. ”

            But you’ll never catch pgl noticing that the DOD has never PASSED an audit. Is there some reason why a good American citizen wouldn’t want to know that the DOD is spending taxpayer money wisely…and according to congressional authorizations?

            it seems that pgl could care less if the DOD is throwing money down a rat hole!

    3. Anonymous

      colorado district 3, adam frisch conceded to lauren boebert, the one pictured shooting a .50 cal sniper rifle.

      1. Ivan

        Like the GOP win in the House the news is not that she won but close the election was. She was supposed to be in a super safe right wing GOP district and ended up winning with less than 0.5%. Next time she will face an opponent with a lot more money – unless she tone down her boeberting seriously.

        1. Anonymous

          close bc it took 10 days to get the harvest in.

          co district 03 (lack of) ballot security is the issue

    4. ltr

      “Yea I get that this witch with a B…”

      “Considering —— supports corporate and religious groups who traffick and push ‘migration’ to the border, maybe she should commit suicide…”

      [ Prejudiced language encourages and supports prejudiced, violent language in turn. ]

        1. ltr

          “Yea I get that this witch with a B…”

          [ The way in which women are demeaned. ]

          “I never thought you would be defending members of the KKK but you are.”

          [ The intimidation that follows when women are defended. ]

      1. ltr

        “Yea I get that this witch with a B…”

        “Considering —— supports corporate and religious groups who traffick and push ‘migration’ to the border, maybe she should commit suicide…”

        [ Frightening, over and over. This is prejudiced and dangerous language.

        Prejudiced language encourages and supports prejudiced, violent language in turn. ]

        1. Dr. Dysmalist

          “Frightening, over and over. This is prejudiced and dangerous language.”

          Wrong again, Xi shill. Just like you were wrong in a previous thread about the use of “Uncle Tom,” a usage which has been very common in the African-American community for at least 50 years. There’s a lot that can be criticized about American culture but you must first understand the culture before you can presume to criticize it.

          1. ltr

            https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/mar/30/race.society

            March 30, 2002

            Don’t blame Uncle Tom
            The hero of a novel published 150 years ago has become a byword for black betrayal and subservience.
            By Gary Younge – Guardian

            In a nation bitterly split and destined for civil war on this very issue, the book’s publication, not to mention its success, provoked a vicious reaction. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the epicentre of a massive cultural phenomenon,” writes Richard Yarborough, a California-based academic, in his essay: Strategies of black characterisation in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, “the tremors of which still affect the relationship between blacks and whites in the United States.”

            In the 19th century, the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger instructed his reviewer: “I would have the review as hot as hellfire, blasting and searing the reputation of the vile wretch in petticoats who could write such a volume.”

            Within two years, pro-slavery writers had answered Uncle Tom’s Cabin with at least 15 novels, similarly polemical in style but arguing that slaves in the south were better off than free workers in the north. One of these novels was called Uncle Robin In His Cabin In Virginia And Tom Without One In Boston.

            When Abraham Lincoln met Stowe in 1862, one year into the American civil war, he greeted her with the words: “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.” But the novel’s impact was global rather than national. Among those who hailed it as a masterpiece were Ivan Turgenev, Victor Hugo, Leo Tolstoy and George Eliot. The British prime minister, Lord Palmerston, read it three times and admired it not so much for the story as “for the statesmanship of it”….

          2. ltr

            Wrong again, —— shill.
            Wrong again, —— shill.
            Wrong again, —— shill.

            [ Such is the carefully intimidating language of Joseph McCarthy. ]

          3. Moses Herzog

            The other term which is commonly used, even now, which whites are apparently “not allowed” to us is “porch n—–” or “house n—–”

            I always thought the way to get rid of words was to completely eliminate their usage in the language. But the “woke” and “SJWs” say that we allow the minority group to continue on using them but at the same time eliminate their usage in historical books and historical films, so the younger generation can believe they were never used in those times, makes them “feel better” and actually creating more of a rose-blossom view of the past.

            I’m just your creepy old white uncle, trying to “learn” false pictures of the past “foster healing”.

  2. Ivan

    Another thing we have learned from Russia’s attack on Ukriane. Big centralized grids are vulnerable to terror strategies.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63659370

    That is why we need to switch away from them and instead build small localized production units and interconnected microgrids. The minuscule cost savings from going big are not worth the increased vulnerability. It’s going to be hard to change because a lot of money and power is behind the outdated and vulnerable big approaches. However, individual consumers and developers have been looking at going off grid and may end up pushing the issue from outside the political power structure.

    1. pgl

      “On Thursday, Russia pounded Ukraine with a fresh missile barrage, hitting more energy installations and civilian buildings less than two days after one of its heaviest bombardments yet. This has been a recent Russian tactic following setbacks on the battlefield, and its impact is starting to be felt more acutely. People in Kyiv woke to a blanket of snow on Thursday morning, and the emergency power shutdowns have meant many do not have heating in their homes.”

      Putin is not trying to win a military engagement. He can’t. He can manage to kill a lot of innocent Ukrainians, which has become the entire point of this genocide. And of course JohnH and Marjorie Taylor Greene cheer on these war crimes.

      1. JohnH

        The usual unprovoked BS from pgl. Of course, he is totally oblivious to what the US did to Iraq’s infrastructure…the usual situational ethics and double standards!

        “ Iraq’s power, communications, water, sewage treatment and health facilities have not been allowed to recover from the extensive damage inflicted in the 1991 US-led Gulf War. Years of stringent UN sanctions have severely limited reconstruction, leaving the country’s services in such a state that they would disintegrate within days in the event of a US military strike, with serious consequences for the population.” And that’s exactly what happened.
        https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2002/11/iraq-n04.html

        Twenty years later, little has changed: “ Iraq broils in dangerous 120-degree heat as power grid shuts down”https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/iraq-broils-in-dangerous-120-degree-heat-as-power-grid-shuts-down/ar-AA10pBGI

        Yet the US government, counting on people’s short memories, conveniently presumes its right to be the great humanitarian judge and call out others for doing the same despicable things the US itself did only a few years ago. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2002/11/iraq-n04.html

        Let’s not forget it was Madeleine Albright, not Putin, who said that the deaths of half a million Iraqi kids was worth it. (Note, pgl, that Albright was a Democrat…)

        1. pgl

          “The usual unprovoked BS from pgl.”

          Hey dumbass. Ukraine is not Iraq and the calendar says the year is 2022. But way to deflect from the FACT that your favorite war criminals launched 90 missiles in just one day towards innocent citizens.

          You are not only disgusting as it gets. You stupidly set yourself for ridicule. I guess those bones you get from Kremlin are mighty tasty.

          1. pgl

            BTW folks – Johnny boy has gotten a paying gig marketing BS from people who write for Sputnik News. Now maybe he does not know this – he is after all incredibly dumb.

          2. JohnH

            pgl has no comment about Madeline Albright saying that the deaths of half a million Iraqi kids was worth it…but he sure is incensed about Ukraine, where “At least 437 Ukrainian children have been killed as a result of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office has said.” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2022/11/19/170

            Furthermore, “U.S. occupation of Afghanistan brought nothing but death and destruction, particularly to Afghan children. The international aid agency Save the Children revealed that nearly 33,000 children were killed or maimed during the 20 years of U.S. war and occupation in Afghanistan.” https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-09/Afghan-children-killed-by-the-U-S-forces-must-not-die-for-nothing-13pUHPaI2hW/index.html

            If deaths of children are really important to the posters here, they should be trying to make sure that our country never behaves like this again…then we can worry about the behavior of others.

          3. pgl

            “JohnH
            November 19, 2022 at 9:30 am
            pgl has no comment about Madeline Albright saying that the deaths of half a million Iraqi kids was worth it”

            Actually I did by providing a link to someone who called this whole thing a flat out lie. But that is all you got. Kicking someone down after she died with pathetic false charges. You are not only disgusting, dishonest, but also a clown.’

        2. pgl

          “Let’s not forget it was Madeleine Albright, not Putin, who said that the deaths of half a million Iraqi kids was worth it.”

          Sanction imposed in the 1990’s well before Bush43’s 2003 invasion. And the claim that 500,000 Iraqi kids were killed by them is one of your patented LIES:

          https://misbar.com/en/factcheck/2022/03/26/us-sanctions-did-not-kill-500000-iraqi-children

          But nice try troll. Look we know Putin feeds you bones to be his pet poodle but come on – one lie after another is not excusing Putin’s war crimes. But do keep embarrassing yourself this way!!!

        3. Noneconomist

          JohnH really knows how to pick ‘em.
          On one side, there’s corrupt Ukraine and its NATO allies made of of faux democratic nations like the U.S., UK, Germany, France, Italy, et.al. JohnH holds his nose at the mere mention of these miscreants.
          Fortunately, opposing them, is freedom loving Mother Russia, led by an ex KGB colonel with many political assassinations and murders to his credit and his very wealthy pals, and its partners Iran and Syria, two nations that have endeared themselves to liberty loving people everywhere. We might also here include China and North Korea, whose dedication to human rights needs no further explanation.
          No wonder which side JohnH has chosen. He can proudly stand, in his best 60’s salute, fist raised, and proclaim “Power to the Putin, er I mean people!”
          And May that wonderful Ayotallah ship those Iranian drones quickly and safely to all those brave young men fighting to free Ukraine from its Jewish Nazi leaders. The more civilians they can kill and maim, the better.
          Yes, JohnH, who constantly laments futile wars,(wink! wink!) is all in for those good guys. Was there ever any doubt?

        4. Baffling

          John, i challenge you to denounce putin and the atrocities committed by russia in ukraine. Do you have the guts to do so, or will you deflect once again.

          1. Baffling

            John, still waiting on that reply. Or is it simply you cannot be critical of russia? Or will you take the Trump route and blame both sides? Coward. You have the same integrity as econned.

          2. Barkley Tosser

            anonymous,

            NATO did not start this war and in fact is not even directly fighting it. It is arming Ukraine to help it engage in self-defense against the warmmongering Russians who have invaded. Sorry, but there is no equivalence here. One side is committing massive war crimes while the other side is trying to stop them from doing so and not committing any in response. And it is simply bad Russian propaganda that they needed to invade because Ukraine might join NATO. Does that make NATO “warmongers”?

            You really are losing whatever marbles you ever had.

          3. Econned

            Baffling,
            Hello! I see I’m on your mind, is there anything that I can help you with? What specifically are you able to point to regarding my integrity and how does it concern you?

          4. Baffling

            As expected, john could not bring himself to criticize putin. Probably because he is a paid russian hackwhose goal is misinformation.

        5. Macroduck

          – Surveys undertaken since 2003 find no evidence of unusually high levels of child mortality during 1991-2003.
          – The government of Iraq cleverly manipulated survey data to fool the international community.

          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5717930/

          The claim that U.S. sanctions on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq led to high levels of child mortality has never been validated. I notice Johnny hasn’t been able to provide a link to Albright sayingthe death of 500,000 children was worth it, whatever “it” Johnny had in mind.

          Sad thing is, Hussein used the claim of children’s deaths to shame the U.S. into lifting sanctions. Shrub used the Hussein’s claim as an excuse to invade, arguing that not invading was too costly in terms of human life.

          This is stunning. Johnny managed to get the simple facts wrong, ignore the impact of the distortion of facts and lie about Albright, all in one rant. I’m not sure anyone could embarrass himself more in one go, but if anyone can, it’s Johnny.

          I’ll ask again: Johnny, what’s got you so upset?

        1. Ivan

          Russia took a 10 day pause to collect (import or produce) enough ammo to fire off 100 missiles and send 15 drones in one day. That would suggest that between their own production and imports from friendly countries they can get 10 missiles and 1-2 (Iranian) drones per day. All the drones were shot down as were 70% of the missiles. So until the more effective anti-missile systems are operational in Ukraine they will have to endure an average of 3 missile strikes on infrastructure per day. They can easily handle that – so another Russian failed strategy in the making.

          Russias lack of munition is not counted in the number of shells they fire, but in the number they don’t fire – and the origin and type they do fire. They have had to import substandard Iranian and North Korean shit. They had to slow down a half-assed attempt to destroy Ukraines infrastructure for lack of precision ammo. They had to abandon Kherson city and the west bank of Dnipro because they didn’t have what it takes to take out those HIMARS batteries. They even had to import west for their soldiers. The only thing they don’t seem to be out of is soldiers to send into Ukraine for cannon fodder. Given who is and who is not send to be killed, one have to question whether Russia is actually engaged in ethnic cleansing of Russia.

          1. Ulenspiegel

            “Russia took a 10 day pause to collect (import or produce) enough ammo to fire off 100 missiles and send 15 drones in one day.”

            a) you attack per day many widely distributed targets; this approach works as long as the enemy has no effective air defence.

            b) you accumulate missiles/drones and attack each few days only a limited set of targets, you are able to saturate the air defence at the attacked sites; this is overall less effective than a) but of course better than losing all you material to enemy air defence.

            Russia hopes to produce a refugee crisis by destroying civilian infra structure, millions of refugees may produce a decreasing willingness of western European countries to support Ukraine next year. It is consensus of experts that Russia military options are very limited.

            The drones are very economic and are most likely used for the saturation part of the attack, the missiles go through and hit then the target.

            In case of missiles it is not plausible to assume that the Russians produce 10 per day, they get imports from Iran or – IMHO more likely – are depleting stocks.

          2. Ivan

            I agree that the 10 per day is a maximum and it’s likely that Russia is further depleting their stock to get to 10 per day average (a number that is in itself too small to reach the objective). They have for many months been using defensive S300 missiles for their attack, which is interesting in itself. Their missile stock seems to have been mainly build to handle being attacked by NATO – not for offensive operations. I also have seen a suggestion that Russia is holding back a substantial stock of weapons in case NATO decide to attack them this winter. So they must really see NATO as an aggressive force that realistically could decide to invade them. Maybe Poland should start building up at their border with Belarus -just to poke their paranoia a little.

          3. Anonymous

            effective air defense does not happen with batteries of ground launched air to air missile, and 1960s Nikes….

            nor does it evidence itself by claiming s-300 was used against cruise missiles.

            air defense requires a networked clan of sensors, computing, comms, and human oversight far beyond the geniuses in Kiev.

            that is more external input and high paid contracts….

            saving the alleged liberals in Kiev is highly profitable…

            until someone knock out some expensive usa stuff…..

          4. Barkley Tosser

            Anonymous,

            That you spell it “Kiev” rather than “Kyiv” tells us exactly what “information” sources you are using. Or maybe you are a chef and want to cook some Chicken Kiev.

  3. pgl

    Hakeem Jeffries is not waiting around:

    In a letter to his Democratic colleagues, Jeffries, from Brooklyn, New York, said it is his “hope” to find “common ground” with Republicans, but if the opposing party “continues to major in demagoguery and minor in disinformation, their bankruptcy of ideas must be aggressively exposed on an ongoing basis.” … “Our top non-governmental priority, for the sake of the American people, must be retaking the majority in November 2024,” he wrote.

    Kevin – while you are wasting your time with the likes of Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene, the new Democratic leadership are about to make you irrelevant.

    1. Anonymous

      jeffries is sharing hyperbole, and the old ‘deplorable’ charge against diverging ideas…..

      polarity is two sided.

        1. CoRev

          “polarity is two sided.” and “Hey idiot – eff off.” is ole Bark, bark’s response?!?

          What an idiot, and a great representative of today’s political issues.

          And this idiot is still allowed to run rampant with comments here?

      1. Macroduck

        Ah, yes! The old “both sides are to blame” canard. No need for accountability when the party of election denial and insurrection claims both sides are to blame.

    2. JohnH

      Replacing one Big Money Speaker with another is pgl and MacroDuck’y’s vision of progress!

      A corporate lawyer by occupation, Jeffries worked for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, then Viacom and CBS before running for office.

      “ Progressives Outraged as House Democrats Elect ‘Big Money’ Centrist Hakeem Jeffries Over Barbara Lee for Caucus Chair”
      https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/11/28/progressives-outraged-house-democrats-elect-big-money-centrist-hakeem-jeffries-over

      We always knew that pgl, the self-styled progressive growth liberal is really a faux progressive. bmgl—Big Money Growth Liberal—would be more appropriate.

      1. pgl

        Hey troll – you do not have the right to shine Jeffries shoes. Oh yea – Jeffries is black so a disgusting racist like you expects him to shine your shoes for a nickel.

      2. pgl

        The Democratic Party establishment needs to be primaried into oblivion,” Margaret McLaughlin, a member of the Metro D.C. branch of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), wrote on Twitter. While Jeffries is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC)

        I guess a socialist would be to the left of a progressive. But JohnH has been touting right wing racists like Marjorie Taylor Greene and her ilk so pardon me if I could care less what this lying troll has to say.

        1. JohnH

          pgl never heard of Jeffries’ Team Blue PAC. “Team Blue is on one side of this conflict. Jeffries launched the effort with Gottheimer and Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) last June. The trio is not a monolith: Jeffries is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, while Gottheimer and Sewell are members of the business-friendly Democratic coalitions. ” IOW, Jeffries is another Republican-lite Democrat. Just what the country needs!
          https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/democratic-primaries-progressives-incumbents-hakeem-jeffries-1301186/

          Jeffries membership in the CPC is a clever move…”keep your friends close and keep your enemies closer.” The faux progressive growth liberal (pgl) knows exactly how misrepresentation of your position works.

          1. pgl

            Yea – we get you are now working for Marjorie Taylor Greene. The grand plan is to create disarray in the Democratic Party which will allow Marjorie to do her thing from a GOP leadership position. Heck they might even rewrite the rules to bring back Trump as President. Which would make Johnny boy happy as a President Trump would allow Putin to take over Ukraine which of course is Johnny’s number 1 dream. And of course Trump will finally build that wall so racists like Taylor Greene can deport tens of millions of Hispanics.

            Gee Johnny – I never knew you were a closest racist. But hey – you do want to be Princeton Steve’s BFF. Go for it.

      3. Macroduck

        Johnny? Johnny, did I mention McCarthy? Pretty sure I didn’t. So where, exactly, did I mention, much less cheer for, a replacement speaker?

        Ah, you probably just mis-spoke. You didn’t mean “speaker”, right? In your frenzy, you got the facts wrong. Getting facts wrong is what you do, after all.

        You also have a habit of assigning views to others. Assuming you meant to claim that I said something in support of Jeffires, prove it. Show us. Likewise, I’m pretty sure the “p” in pgl stands for “pro”, rather than “progressive”.

        So you’re just making stuff up…again. Why do you do that, Johnny? Are you afraid you’ll look silly if you stick to facts? You’re probably right, seeing as how you aren’t very good with facts, but this ranting and thrashing isn’t a great look, either.

        Gorw up just a tiny bit, Johnny. Then, maybe the adults will pay more attention to you.

        Johnny,

  4. Macroduck

    The (formerly?) richest man in the world just told his employees they have to suffer for his mistake – a common management decision – or find another job. Looks like a bunch of them are finding other jobs.

    Obviously, when the consequences of bad management are borne by management, the labor market is too tight.

    1. Baffling

      Musk is in meltdown mode. Surprised he fell down this rabbit hole. But the idea that our leaders are playing 3d chess is simply a misnomer. Most are smart, but not that gifted. They all make mistakes. Some more than others.

  5. pgl

    https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-ticketmaster-entertainment-inc-make-significant-changes-its

    Justice Department Requires Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. to Make Significant Changes to Its Merger with Live Nation Inc.
    Software Licensing Agreement, Divestiture and Anti-Retaliation Provisions Will Preserve Competition in Ticketing in the United States

    The headline of a document from January 25, 2010. I linked to this because the frustration of Taylor Swift fans with Ticketmaster has spurred the Justice Department to revisit this issue. I guess Swifties have a lot of influence.

  6. pgl

    Garland names Jack Smith special counsel for Trump criminal probes
    Smith, a former chief of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, will oversee criminal matters related to former President Donald Trump.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/18/garland-to-appoint-special-counsel-for-trump-criminal-probes-00069451#:~:text=Garland%20to%20appoint%20special%20counsel%20for%20Trump%20criminal,Trump%2C%20according%20to%20a%20senior%20Justice%20Department%20official.

    This guy’s resume is top notch. But of course expect the MAGA crowd to spew its usual vile.

    1. Ivan

      Yes Trump thought he could get out from investigation and indictments by running for President. Turns out they were ready to hand it all to an independent special counsel. Investigations will continue and the only thing preventing indictment will be the election in two years. If Trump is indicted he will almost certainly demand the trial must happen after the election (and he will be able to get it dragged out at least 2 years). Indeed he will be so desperate to win (and pardon himself) that he will do anything not to lose their primary. This will become very interesting.

    1. JohnH

      Not to rain on your parade, but “ Mortgage Rates Are High Because Nobody Is Buying Mortgages.”

      “ Banks have stepped back from buying mortgage bonds. So has the Federal Reserve, the largest investor in that market. Foreign buyers and money managers are curtailing purchases too, analysts say.”
      https://www.wsj.com/articles/mortgage-rates-are-high-because-nobody-is-buying-mortgages-11668460705

      Sometimes it pays to look at more than the numbers and try to understand context and underlying dynamics…

      1. pgl

        Wait – an inward shift in the demand for loans led to higher interest rates. I knew you were dumb but DAMN!

      2. pgl

        Gee Johnny boy – I guess you did not READ the actual story. I did. The headline is stupid. The real story is that there has been an inward shift of the supply of loanable funds and a movement ALONG the demand curve. Of course economics is a foreign language to an idiot like you so troll on my brother!

        1. JohnH

          I guess I DID read the story. The headline and first paragraph summarized the article nicely. Little new information was provided, except in the Urban Institute link. And there was certainly no reference to the supply of loanable funds theory or to movement along the demand curve. But pgl does lie a lot!

          pgl seems to be clueless as ever to the context and dynamics behind the change in supply of loanable mortgage funds or movement along the demand curve. Hint: the Fed’s decision to stop purchase mortgages is part of the context and one of the underlying dynamics.

          To bring pgl up to date: “The Fed Stopped Buying MBS Today.” Wolf Richter, https://wolfstreet.com/2022/09/16/the-fed-stopped-buying-mbs-today/

          1. pgl

            “A date for history: Today, September 15, the Fed stopped buying mortgage-backed securities altogether.”

            Its holdings of these securities may have stopped going up but the FED still holds an enormous amount of them:

            https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QBPBSTASSCMRTSEC

            It is a laugh riot that you lecture anyone on checking the data since you never do. Reading a dumbly written POS article is not checking the data. Let me help Johnny boy out here. The FED still $3.38 trillion of these securities. In case you are too stupid to know – that is one large figure.

          2. JohnH

            Wow! If pgl had bothered to read the article he would have seen that Wolf clearly explained that the total holdings were not going to drop anytime soon and that holdings would even rise a bit as purchase completed the closing process. Then holdings would drop slowly as mortgages came to term or were refinanced.

            What is significant here is that the Fed has been one of the biggest buyers of mortgages, particularly during the last two years. Now it has left the market for the time being at least. And it is significant that other buyers are pulling back as well.

            Apparently pgl has totally forgotten why the Fed got into the mortgage market in the first place. As we have seen clearly here, pgl is not at all interested in understanding why these decisions are being made or what the implications might be.

          3. pgl

            Of course the amount of MBS held by the FED is still massive. Wolf Richter’s writing suckered you into believing something that is false. Of course you could have consulted with FRED to see how dumb your rants here are but you as usual did not.

      3. JohnH

        pgl probably doesn’t realize that the Fed stopped buying mortgage backed securities. And he certainly doesn’t understand the implications of that decision.

        1. pgl

          Seriously? How effing dumb are you? The implications are simply that credit spreads have risen. Something I have noted a little and Macroduck has noted a lot. But of course you cannot participate in the conversations of the grown ups – can you?

          My simple point what this represents a movement along the demand for loanable funds and not the implication of that dumb headline you copied and pasted which suggested an inward shift of the demand curve.

          But yea – a mental midget like you never understand even 2 plus 2. Troll on!

        2. pgl

          It still HOLDs over $3.38 trillion of these securities. Hey dumbass – stop reading people who write garbage and start learning to use FRED. GEESH!

      4. Macroduck

        Johnny, you really are struggling here. The grown ups all know the things you insist you have “discovered” in the press. So tell me, how does the fact that demand for MBS has fallen contradict the fact that mortgage rates have fallen?

        Let me help you. When playing “Gotcha!”, you should try to actually catch the other guy making a mistake. You see, I pointed out two things. One was that mortgage rates fell in the last week, the other that used home sale (which I intended as a loose proxy for the housing market in general) have fallen pretty steadily over the past year. I also implied that lower borrowing rates might help home sales. So tell me, which of these do you mean to dispute with your “Gotcha!” link?

        Johnny did you find something unpleasant in your cereal bowl? You are letting your emotions make you look silly. Pretending that you’ve the adults making a mistake doesn’t make you look grown up, Johnny. Nor does pretending that grown ups believe something they don’t believe or support things they don’t support.

        Poor, silly Johnny.

        1. JohnH

          Funny, I didn’t see MacroDuck or pgl mention anywhere that the spread between the 10 year Treasury and the 30 year mortgage is 2.8%. That’s about as high as it has ever been this century.

          1. pgl

            “Funny, I didn’t see MacroDuck or pgl mention anywhere that the spread between the 10 year Treasury and the 30 year mortgage is 2.8%.”

            Then you are more blind that Mr. Magoo. I have noted this spread MANY times. Look dude – EVERYONE here knows you are a blatant liar. And you have proven you are dumber than a rock. So RELAX as you do not have to try so hard as you are always the worst troll ever.

          2. Macroduck

            Johnny? I asked you a question above, which co es down to “what’s your point?” You’ve responded by pretending to make another point. So, what’s your point?

            Spreads are wide – an issue I raised some time ago. Wide spreads have not prevented mortgage rates from falling, any more than slack MBS demand has prevented mortgage rates from falling. My point, which seems to have been too much for you to grasp, is that mortgage rates have fallen.

            So, for the casual reader of comments here, who may not be familia with the give-and-take between frequent commenters, here’s a bit of background –

            JohnH regularly resorts to cheap debating tricks. I won’t speculate about his reason just now. Here, the cheap trick he employs is to pretend he has found a weakness in something I have said. Hee hasn’t – he’s really just introduing a strawman into the dscussion – slack demand for mortgage debt. I don’t need to defend the strawman, because it has nothng to do with my point. While I don’t defend JohnH’s strawman, I correct JohnH because his position is misleading, and I don’t like for people to be misled.

            JohnH apparently would like for people to be misled. Otherwse, he’d address the simple question I have put to him. How does slack demand for mortgage debt contradict my point that mortgage rates fell last week? He wants you, casual readers, to think there is some fact I’ve mssed. Why he wants you to believe that, I leave to JohnH to explain. JohnH is putting on a display of umbrage and outrage without any real point to make.

          3. JohnH

            pgl and MacroDucky claim to have raised the issue of the unusually high spread between 10 year Treasury and 30 year mortgage rates.

            But a Google search of this site over the last month, when the spreads got to their highest, reveals nothing.

            I’m sure that pgl and MacroDucky, being very reliable commenters, THOUGHT they had mentioned record high spreads. In fact, the spread alone exceeds some total mortgage rates available in early 2021!

            So, if mortgage spreads are so high, maybe pgl and MacroDucky, being the brilliant economists that they are, could give us some context and dynamics underlying this explosion of the spread. And if they have done this already, then it certainly be a no brainer to cut and paste their analysis from the past month of the reasons behind the high spread!

          4. pgl

            “pgl and MacroDucky claim to have raised the issue of the unusually high spread between 10 year Treasury and 30 year mortgage rates. But a Google search of this site over the last month, when the spreads got to their highest, reveals nothing.”

            A Google search? God you are dumb. Oh wait I noted the spread between 30 year mortgage rate and 30 year government bond rates – which I did this correctly. Your spread is not correct. But yea – I did not report the incorrect measure of the spread like you did. As MD asked – what is your point? That would are a lying moron? We all knew that a long time ago.

          5. JohnH

            pgl shows that he has absolutely no clue as to the underlying causes behind the extraordinarily high 10 year Treasury-30 year mortgage spread. If mortgage interest rates are to drop, spurring housing, then both the 10 year Treasury rate and the spread between it and the 30 year mortgage have to come down substantially. But if you have no clue as to why the spread is so high, then you have no clue as to how to reduce the spread or even signs indicating it might drop.

            And, when asked to prove his claim that he ever mentioned that spread, pgl comes up empty handed. He can’t even repeat what he (didn’t) say! pgl is clueless!

          6. pgl

            Funny – the 30-year government bond rate = 3.9% as I noted above and the 30-year mortgage rate which we reported = 6.6%. Now we know you flunked preK arithmetic but the spread properly measured was not 2.8%. Try 2.7% moron.

            Now you claim to have some unspecified Google search which is rather dumb. Try using FRED and go back to October 2008 (just after the fall of Lehmans) and do try to get the correct information. Then ask your preK teacher how to do the basic arithmetic. We’ll wait!

          7. JohnH

            OK, pgl, now that you have actually been able to calculate the spread between the 10 year Treasury and the 30 year mortgage (Bravo!!), could you explain why the spread is so high? What are the causes and conditions behind its rise to about the highest levels this century? And what is likely to make it rise and fall?

            As I said in my initial comment on this matter, I said, “Sometimes it pays to look at more than the numbers and try to understand context and underlying dynamics.” In that regard, pgl and MacroDuck are clueless…no understanding of what is happening whatsoever. But pgl does know how to calculate a spread (Bravo!)

          8. JohnH

            MacroDucky…you still can’t explain why spreads between to 30 year mortgage and 10 year Treasury are near record levels for this century, can you? If you don’t care to understand that, you’re not in a position to understand what might cause them to fall, are you? Since you don’t care to understand these dynamics, you’re really not in a position to talk about the future of mortgage rates, are you? [Of course, they’ll go down at some point…everybody knows that much!]

          9. pgl

            “JohnH
            November 22, 2022 at 5:50 am
            OK, pgl, now that you have actually been able to calculate the spread between the 10 year Treasury and the 30 year mortgage (Bravo!!), could you explain why the spread is so high?”

            Damn you are dumb. Look dude – why don’t you try to mansplain this since it was you that raised this. Of course you got the basics wrong as usual just as you claimed interest rates were rising because the demand for loans fell.

            And let me repeat a simple point – the spread is defined as the 30-year mortgage rate minus the 30-year government bond rate. Do I need to tell you this another 100 times before your worthless brain gets it.

            Seriously dude – your community college is teaching Econ 101 so why don’t you take the course.

          10. JohnH

            Gotta love this…pgl is obviously CLUELESS as to why the 30 year mortgage spread over the 10 year Treasury is near a record high for this century.

            Much of the sharp rise in mortgage rates has had to do with this near-record spread. So the rising spread is very significant. Understanding the underlying causes for the rise of the spread would help explain not only why the spread rose so much but also what would have to change for the spread to go down, leading to lower rates beyond just a reduction of the 10 year Treasury.

            Though I have dropped plenty of hints as to some of the underlying causes, pgl has rejected them all out of hand.

            Reminds me of the time I was in Brazil and I told a co-worker that women’s swimming suits must have been really inexpensive because there was so little to them. He said, “Oh, no! They’re VERY expensive!” Go figure! It must have been the value added by marketing!

          11. JohnH

            Well, pgl, the spread between the 10 year Treasury and the 30 year mortgage is what most people in the industry refer to. But I suppose you know better, as always. To make it official, is there a NBER determination that we can expect a few months from now?

  7. Macroduck

    An open question is whether Jack Smith’s mandate extends to issues uncovered by Robert Mueller. Mueller decline to pursue indictment of Donald Trump because of Department of Justice rules prohibiting indictment of a sitting president. Oopsy. Among the charges for which Trump could be indicted as a result of Mueller’s investigation is obstruction of justice. Since the Mar-a-Lago case involves obstruction of justice, I’m gonna guess Smith will take a strong interest.

    The DoJ already has acres of sworn depositions, phone records and other evidence, and can call upon Mueller’s team for guidance, to speed things along.

    Some charges from the Mar-a-Lago case look open-and-shut. The mumbling about document classification is a sideshow; the law doesn’t care whether documents are classified, only that they matter to national security.

    So, since pretending to be an attorney is a well-established tradition here in comments, I’m gonna say Smith has one charge on which he can prosecute without much doubt, and another which depends on the length of leash Attorney General Garland has provided.

    So far, we know that Garland has reiterated instructions handed down by Bill Barr, which do not seem to preclude using evidence developed by Mueller. Pretending now to be Attorney General Garland – ’cause pretending to be an attorney is a well-established tradition here in comments – I see know reason not to use direction handed down by Trump’s own AG in prosecuting Trump.

    One final point: We may now find out which members of the troll choir are real Trumpists and which are merely faux news bobble-heads. After all, faux news now has orders to glorify Desantis rather than Tump. The alternative is to declare “witch-hunt because Democrats are bad” instead of “witch-hunt because Trump” and ride out the period of Republican fratricide.

    1. Macroduck

      A note on the timing of the special counsel –

      Trump refused to testify before the January 6 committee. The committee will be disolved on or around January 3. There is no longer much chance the committee and the DoJ will trip overeach other, so enter Jack Smith.

      Didn’t DoJ issue a peck of subpoenas to Trump’s close associates a few weeks ago? Those will have had time to percolate. There is just a smorgasbord of evidence for Smith to use.

    2. Ivan

      The national security case is already a done deal. I think DOJ was just waiting for Trump to announce, so they could hand it over to an independent special prosecutor. It would have been a nightmare for DOJ to go after a GOP Presidential candidate when a democrat is in the white house.

      The Jan 6 case is more difficult to prosecute because they in part have to prove that Tump didn’t believe his own BS. It may still take some investigation before it becomes a watertight case.

      The good news is that it is both in the interest of Trump and Democrats, that the case is not going to court the next 2 years. So in the process of trying to save his own ass, Trump will help democrats and democracy.

      1. Macroduck

        Minor point: Ken Starr’s behavior was so egregious that the independent counsel law was allowed to expire in 1999. Special counsels, like Mueller and Smith, work under the supervision of the Attorney General, and are not independent.

        1. Ivan

          True that they can be fired – but that is just about the only way for the AG to “influence” them after they are appointed. They also have to report to congress if certain things happen. So they are not subject to actual supervision except for that which is out in the open.

          1. pgl

            Nixon had to go trough 3 AGs to fire his Special Prosecutor. Of Robert Bork finally agreed to do Nixon’s bidding.

  8. Anonymous

    the other night evening news siad the hospitals are filling with children….

    https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm

    some worry rsv first exposure in the young ones.

    scroll down to Hospitalization Surveillance, FluSurv-NET

    logistics curve for flu in 2022 is earlier and steeper than previous.

    is something changed?

    1. Baffling

      Dominant flu strain historically hits the elderly and young hard. This will be a bad flu season, unfortunately. Antivaxers will play a big role in a higher death count, as most will be unvaccinated but eligible

    2. Dr. Dysmalist

      “is something changed?”

      From what I understand (happy to be corrected by someone with actual expertise), the Covid mitigation measures that have been used in varying degrees over the last two years left to many fewer children being exposed to RSV and flu, so it’s like there are three years’ worth of children who will be exposed to them this year. Thus, this year will look bad because we’re playing catch-up after the last two years.

  9. pgl

    It seems JohnH thinks he has the goods on Hakeem Jeffries as this Brooklyn congressman got a law degree and actually worked for a LAW FIRM. Ewwww – evil person! Well? Let’s dig a little deeper:

    https://hakeemjeffries.com/about-hakeem/

    Congressman Jeffries was elected Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus in 2018. In that capacity, he is the fifth highest-ranking Democrat in the House. He is also the former Whip of the Congressional Black Caucus and previously co-chaired the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee where he helped develop the winning midterm For The People agenda. Congressman Jeffries served as an Impeachment Manager in the historic first impeachment of President Donald J. Trump, becoming the first African American man to hold that position. Paying homage to Brooklyn, Congressman Jeffries quoted The Notorious B.I.G. as he laid out the case against Trump. In Congress, Congressman Jeffries has emerged as a tireless advocate for safer communities, affordable housing and lower costs. Recently, he helped guide communities in Central and South Brooklyn through the devastating COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic crisis. He played a leading role in the passage of measures that will create jobs and make life better for everyday families, like the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

    That is the resume of a Big Money sell out? I don’t think so. Now I also like Barbara Lee having lived in Northern Cal for a while. Now if you check her resume – she has championed many of the issues that Jeffries has championed. But all of this is way over Johnny boy’s little head as after all Jeffries got a law degree. EVIL!

    1. JohnH

      pgl might be interested in thihs piece from New York Magazine: “Speaker of the Establishment Hakeem Jeffries becoming House Democrats’ next leader is not necessarily a sign of progress…

      His corporate-centrist inclinations are consistent with the evolving role of the Congressional Black Caucus. Once viewed as a thorn in the side of party leaders because of its agitation on behalf of everyday Black people, the self-styled “conscience of Congress” has gotten much bigger and more influential in its 51 years. Now the CBC resembles more of a professional organization for protecting incumbents and advancing the careers of its members. Its strong ties with sketchy corporate partners — including Walmart and Altria (formerly Philip Morris) — illustrate how far it has traveled from the margins of influence to the center. The shift has also made the organization flexible with its stated principles. It purports to withhold endorsements in races for open seats in which two Black candidates are running, but it gladly threw its weight behind moderate Shontel Brown when she faced leftist Nina Turner in their Ohio primary this year. In 2020, after white incumbent Eliot Engel said he “wouldn’t care” about a Bronx anti-police-abuse event if he “didn’t have a primary,” Jeffries supported him against Black challenger Jamaal Bowman.’
      https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/11/hakeem-jeffries-speaker-of-the-establishment.html

      Let’s face it. Both parties’ primary business is to launder money from wealthy individuals and corporations to politicians and their campaigns. It’s basically legalized corruption. The only reason it’s not legally considered corruption is that corrupt politicians decided to make sure it’s legal.

      Pelosi’s signature accomplishment was to raise prodigious amounts of money at a time in the 1980s when Democrats fortunes were on the wane due to Reagan’s fund raising successes. Besides fund raising, power, and party loyalty, it’s not clear that she stood for anything. In fact, she stymied union card check by refusing to bring it to a vote when Democrats had a veto proof majority. And in 2007 she ignored the mandate voters gave her to end the Iraq War, instead supporting Petraeus soon-to-fail surge. And she was a notorious chicken hawk in the aftermath of the financial crisis. She did go along with Obamacare, but beyond that, it’s hard to name any major accomplishments.

      As for her successor, you can bet that Democrats’ were looking for someone in her mold…most important being a prodigious fund raiser and sucking up to wealthy donors and corporations. Jefferies’ abilities in those areas will determine the length of his tenure.

      .

      1. pgl

        I am quite aware of the person who wrote this but are you? He is a novice writer who focuses mainly on racial and criminal justice issues, which he does rather well. But big picture politics? Let me take just one line:

        “She did go along with Obamacare, but beyond that, it’s hard to name any major accomplishments.”

        Pelosi “did go along” with Obamacare? Utterly stupid. Without Pelosi’s excellent guidance – Obamacare would not have passed. This according to President Obamacare. And to dismiss the role of being able to match Republicans in fund raising? Oh wait – you are working for Marjorie Taylor Greene so you want the Republicans to win.

        Now this might be a nice piece but even the author admits he is a novice here. Of course he still 1000 times smarter than JohnH. But who isn’t?

      2. pgl

        Johnny boy pretends he know NYC politics. Maybe this Know Nothing did not realize how stunning the defeat of Elliot Engel by Jamaal Bowman really was:

        https://nypost.com/2020/07/17/progressive-jamaal-bowman-defeats-rep-eliot-engel-in-upset/

        I hate to break this to you Johnny but some friends of mine in the Bronx were instrumental to Bowan’s successful campaign. And these same people are elated at Hakeem Jeffries has become the leader in the House.

        Look troll – do not even bother to weigh in on the politics of MY city. We expect expertise not whiny little clownish garbage you excel at.

      1. Ivan

        Yes it looks like cases in China are exploding right now. Daily new cases exceeding even the peak of the Omicron 1 wave.

        Maybe Xi just needed the party congress to be over, before he allowed numbers to get back up again. Now that he has gotten an iron grip on the government and has humiliated an old statesman, the bad stuff cannot threaten him anymore.

        Would be interesting to know how much the zero-Covid policy has simply crumbled against the new strains, or been losened, or just not being enforced anymore. I see there has been a few protests against the lock downs.

    1. ltr

      https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02051-3

      November 10, 2022

      Acute and postacute sequelae associated with SARS-CoV-2 reinfection
      By Benjamin Bowe, Yan Xie & Ziyad Al-Aly

      Abstract

      First infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is associated with increased risk of acute and postacute death and sequelae in various organ systems. Whether reinfection adds to risks incurred after first infection is unclear. Here we used the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ national healthcare database to build a cohort of individuals with one SARS-CoV-2 infection (n = 443,588), reinfection (two or more infections, n = 40,947) and a noninfected control (n = 5,334,729). We used inverse probability-weighted survival models to estimate risks and 6-month burdens of death, hospitalization and incident sequelae. Compared to no reinfection, reinfection contributed additional risks of death (hazard ratio (HR) = 2.17, 95% confidence intervals (CI) 1.93–2.45), hospitalization (HR = 3.32, 95% CI 3.13–3.51) and sequelae including pulmonary, cardiovascular, hematological, diabetes, gastrointestinal, kidney, mental health, musculoskeletal and neurological disorders. The risks were evident regardless of vaccination status. The risks were most pronounced in the acute phase but persisted in the postacute phase at 6 months. Compared to noninfected controls, cumulative risks and burdens of repeat infection increased according to the number of infections. Limitations included a cohort of mostly white males. The evidence shows that reinfection further increases risks of death, hospitalization and sequelae in multiple organ systems in the acute and postacute phase. Reducing overall burden of death and disease due to SARS-CoV-2 will require strategies for reinfection prevention.

      1. Ivan

        But not in China – nobody dies of Covid in China – or so they say 😉

        This kind of apples to oranges comparison is unfortunately very common and one of the reasons the double blind randomized placebo controlled trial has become the gold standard – and many scientists refuse to look at anything else for real insights.

        They are basically discovering that sick people are more likely to get sick and die. The basic flaw in this study and its conclusions are that if you have a weak immune system and poor health you are more likely to get diagnosed with Covid. So those infected once are more vulnerable and sick people even before they got infected – and the group with 2 infections were even worse off before they got infected. In more technical terms the comparisons were between groups that were not matched/balanced. The fact that you can stratify people with larger health vulnerability and find them to be more likely to get all kinds of illnesses and poor outcomes (Covid, diabetes, death, etc.) is trivial. So in contrast to the authors statement that “the evidence shows that reinfection further increases risks of death….”, reality is that the presented data simply confirms that the sicker and more vulnerable you are, the more likely you are to die.

    2. ltr

      There has been no coronavirus death in China since May 26 of this year. The Chinese approach to coronavirus prevention, control and treatment has been and continues to be important as an example. That the Chinese coronavirus approach has been important was just emphasized by the President of Indonesia, and has served in a number of countries.

      https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

      November 18, 2022

      Coronavirus

      New York

      Cases ( 6,503,853)
      Deaths ( 73,831)

      Deaths per million ( 3,795)

      China

      Cases ( 281,793)
      Deaths ( 5,226)

      Deaths per million ( 3.6)

  10. JohnH

    pgl never heard of Jeffries’ Team Blue PAC. “Team Blue is on one side of this conflict. Jeffries launched the effort with Gottheimer and Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) last June. The trio is not a monolith: Jeffries is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, while Gottheimer and Sewell are members of the business-friendly Democratic coalitions. ” IOW, Jeffries is another business-friendly, Republican-lite Democrat. Just what the country needs!
    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/democratic-primaries-progressives-incumbents-hakeem-jeffries-1301186/

    Jeffries membership in the CPC is a clever, cynical move…”keep your friends close and keep your enemies closer.” The faux progressive growth liberal (pgl) knows all about masking your position… just look at his name vs. the anti-progressive positions he takes.

    1. pgl

      You had to repeat this stupid smear? How much is the KKK paying you to spread Marjorie Taylor Greene’s vile?

    2. pgl

      “It’s important to support effective legislators for delivering for the American people in partnership with the Biden administration,” Jeffries says. “We want to support common-sense members who are delivering for their districts and helping advance the Democratic agenda to create jobs and cut costs for their constituents,” adds Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), another Team Blue PAC co-founder.

      That is after all the point which JohnH could care less about. No he harkens a return to the Freedom Caucus and its worthless investigations of Hunter Biden with Trump back in the White House serving Putin’s war crimes and letting racists run immigration policy. MAGA.

    3. Macroduck

      Johhny, Johnny, Johnny…

      What makes you think you actually understand any of this? I’m not saying that political allegiance is hard to understand. I just doubt you’re the right person to understand things. You don’t understand economics, but you seem to think you do. You don’t understand international relations, but you seem to think you do. Your insistence that Jeffries is a Republican in Democrat’s clothing sure looks like you pretending once again to understand things you don’t really understand.

      Johnny, why all the tantrums? What’s got you so fussy, little guy?

    4. Macroduck

      And Johnny, I’m pretty sure your wrong about the meaning of the “p” in “pgl”. Not that pgl would necessarily reject being identified as progressive. Just that you insisting that the “p” stands for “progressive ” is another case of you being either misinformed or dishonest.

      Maybe you should check the facts before you screw this up again.

      1. pgl

        Angrybear years ago announced my joining them noting exactly why we choose my name ProGrowthLiberal. I guess Johnny wasn’t very good at reading back then either.

  11. pgl

    Remember the uproar of the draft opinion that ultimately repealed Roe (the Dobbs decision)? Well there was another leak which came from Alito:

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/progressive-judicial-groups-democrats-call-for-investigation-into-alleged-alito-leak/ar-AA14iSzb?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=43a71970f8294ad09bc033ba36602d09

    Progressive judicial groups Demand Justice and Take Back The Court called on the Senate to open an investigation into U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and the lobbying campaign targeting the high court after The New York Times alleged he leaked the 2014 Hobby Lobby decision to wealthy evangelicals engaged in an influence campaign targeting conservative justices….The New York Times reported on Saturday that Alito disclosed the outcome of the 2014 decision in Hobby Lobby v. Burwell before the decision was announced to an Ohio couple who were part of a campaign led by Schenck, a former conservative evangelical activist, to “stiffen the resolve of the court’s conservatives in taking uncompromising stances that could eventually lead to a reversal of Roe.”

    I have already suggested Clarence Thomas resign from this court. Alito needs to resign as well.

  12. ltr

    Maybe ———- just needed the party congress to be over, before he allowed numbers to get back up again. Now that he has gotten an iron grip on the government and has humiliated an old statesman, the bad stuff cannot threaten him anymore….

    [ This comment is of course entirely false and pernicious. A comment meant to show disdain for and harm an entire people. ]

  13. ltr

    Maybe ———- just needed the party congress to be over, before he allowed numbers to get back up again. Now that he has gotten an iron grip on the government and has humiliated an old statesman, the bad stuff cannot threaten him anymore….

    [ Such is being consumed by racism, so that even matters of life and health are falsely written about. ]

  14. pgl

    Et tu Bill? William Barr throws Trump under the bus:

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/bill-barr-says-increasingly-likely-trump-will-be-legitimately-indicted-on-criminal-charges/ar-AA14hFFI?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=647c78eef06b4f909417b020965c02e0

    Former Attorney General Bill Barr says it looks “increasingly likely” that Donald Trump will be “legitimately” indicted on criminal charges by the Justice Department. Mr Barr’s comments came on the day that current AG Merrick Garland installed a special counsel to oversee investigations into the one-term president. The Republican was asked in a PBS interview about the legal danger facing Mr Trump over the probe into top secret documents the FBI found hidden at Mar-a-Lago. “If the Department of Justice can show that these were very sensitive documents, which I think they probably were and also show that the president consciously was involved in misleading the department, deceiving the government and playing games after he had received the subpoena for the documents, those are serious charges,” said Mr Barr.

  15. Macroduck

    The re-emergence of Johnny tantrums is no surprise – Johnny doesn’t have curiosity or logic or an understanding of how one marshals facts to support a point. Johnny has tantrums.

    But Johnny’s latest round of tantrums does raise the question of how one evaluates politicians. I don’t pretend to deep expertise in this matter, but howling and linking, followed by more howling, is a pretty low standard. It doesn’t take much understanding to improve on Johnny’s approach.

    Where to start? Otto von Bismarck knew a thing or two about politics, so let’s start with him:

    “Politics is the art of the possible, of the attainable…”

    Has Hakeem Jeffries proven himself to be anti-progressive within the current U.S. political context?

    Jeffries opposed stop-and-frisk and supported an independent IG for police and liability in bias cases.

    Jeffries did not support the Green New Deal, but did support the Anti-Inflation Act, which is the biggest environmental spending bill passed since the Green New Deal was first proposed.

    Jeffries supported Obama over Clinton.

    Jeffries generally supports Israel.

    Jeffries is a founder of Team Blue, as Johnny suggested. However, Johnny doesn’t seem to understand what Team Blue does – typical Johnny. Team Blue supports Democratic incumbents against primary challenges. Is that progressive? Not particularly, but not for the reason Johnny suggested.

    Jeffries has suggested that the left within the party stop saying bad things about moderates.

    For Jeffires entire voting record, check here:

    https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/55285/hakeem-jeffries

    For lists of political donors:

    https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/hakeem-jeffries/summary?cid=N00033640&cycle=CAREER

    So, here’s my question – Within the current Democratic House caucus, would Bismark pick someone very far from Jeffires as Minority Leader? If not, then is it reasonable to accuse those who accept Jeffries as Minority Leader of being anti-progressive?

    Let you all in on a little secret, one which Johnny wouldn’t have figured out in a hundred years: Watch what Jeffries does with committee assignments. Committee assignments aren’t the entirety of sausage-making, but they are a big part of it. Jeffries, or someone like him, is the natural choice to lead Democrats in the House. Fussing about that is childish. If Jeffries shuts House lefties out of positions of power within the House, that will be real news.

    1. pgl

      My fellow citizens of Brooklyn will be impressed at this very detailed account of Jeffries account. But we would add just one thing – a song from Biggie Smalls!

  16. pgl

    I think I know why Bruce Hall went on and on about INFLATION!

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trumpflation-causes-prices-of-maga-products-to-skyrocket/ar-AA14hfCS?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=57fce76a5fad40309dc68b1d32b9f9a8

    Trumpflation causes prices of MAGA products to skyrocket
    Trump presidential campaign merchandise used to be a lot less expensive.
    Prices of some MAGA staples — t-shirts, bumper stickers — have nearly doubled in seven years.
    The annual inflation rate is 7.7%.

    Trumpflation is about to pinch MAGA nation. The prices of Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign staples have skyrocketed when compared to what his 2016 presidential committee was charging. That red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap that retailed for $25 seven years ago this month? It’s now $38.

    All of Bruce’s favorite products!

  17. pgl

    As a huge soccer fan I will be watching the World Cup even though it will be in Qatar with all the issues this has raised. After all if it can be screwed up – FIFA will find a way!

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/in-qatar-is-it-legal-to-drink-alcohol/ar-AA14gJrL?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=119574c942e84470bc967eedb399a7f3

    In addition to rules regarding alcohol, the Persian Gulf country also has strict rules surrounding dress codes (particularly for women), proselytizing, same-sex relationships, women traveling alone, and photography. The U.S. guide for Qatar travelers has more specifics on each of these situations. The conservative Muslim nation announced it would not allow the sale of alcohol during the 2022 World Cup on Friday, aside from in a few luxury hospitality areas of the stadiums — most fans don’t have access to those areas, but will be able to drink alcoholic beer in the evenings in what is known as the FIFA Fan Festival, a designated area that also offers live music and activities.

    Oh well – the 2026 hosts will be Canada, Mexico, and the US!

  18. pgl

    Russia stealing children from Ukrainian families:

    https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/11/11/amnesty-international-reports-deportation-and-forced-adoption-of-ukrainian-children-in-russia_6003857_4.html

    Since the Russian invasion began on February 24, thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been forcibly transferred to Russia or to occupied areas. A report published on Thursday, November 10, by Amnesty International focuses in particular on the plight of unaccompanied, separated or orphaned children, deemed “particularly concerning.” Like the elderly or disabled, they are “at higher risk of deportation or forcible transfer,” said the human rights NGO, which condemned a “war crime and a crime against humanity.” Unable to leave by their own means, these children find themselves trapped in the hands of the Russians, deprived of their nationality and adopted by force.

    Of course JohnH will find some clown who writes for Sputnik News to say these war crimes are making these children better off.

    1. JohnH

      Still trying to excuse the deaths of 33,000 children in Afghanistan and half a million in Iraq, aren’t you pgl?

      How about trying to get the US to clean up its act before criticizing others who behave badly?

      1. pgl

        So sweet. Putin has given his favorite pet poodle a couple of bones. Hey Johnny – do you get to watch Putin’s soldiers rape old ladies in Ukraine? I bet you enjoy that a lot.

      2. pgl

        “half a million in Iraq”. A false claim that I have already debunked. But repeating vile lies is Johnny boy’s stock in trade. MAGA!

          1. pgl

            I guess Marjorie Taylor Greene has ordered you not to read what I posted. You are a lying clown. But then EVERYONE here already knows that. So RELAX little racist troll.

          2. Noneconomist

            You’re very concerned, JH, with Albright’s comments from 26 (?) years ago. Yet you’ve personally been silent—actually very skeptical— about Russian atrocities occurring today. Often discounting them as media driven.
            One would think someone who hand wrings over futile wars would comment about modern atrocities committed by an invading force that has heavily damaged a civilian population. You were, you said, a leading voice in protests against the Iraq War with monumental concern over the damages done by it.
            That you don’t show any concern now is sufficient proof that your faux tears shed for innocents are just that: false, buried in the past, and plainly deceptive. You’re a fraud, plain and simple. So please, continue on about Albright, Clinton, whoever and ignore what stares you in the face daily.
            By all means, continue presenting yourself as a voice of the oppressed and slighted, champion of the ignored proletariat.
            You might even convince yourself that you have any convictions at all and that you’re not just another blowhard who likes standing in front a mirror watching himself talk. And talk. And talk some more.

          3. Barkley Rosser

            JohjnH,

            Do please keep in mind that over one million people were killed in the war that Saddam Hussein started by invading Iran in 1981. But then we know you have no problem with leaders who invade their neighbors for no good reason and then proceed to slaughter large numbers of people. You openly support them and never mention their slaughters, instead preferring to criticize the invaded nation for alleged corrupton when it is documented to be less corrupt than the invading nation.

  19. ltr

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-11-16/Chinese-naval-hospital-ship-brings-medical-services-to-Indonesia-1f0kQw9IIO4/index.html

    November 16, 2022

    Chinese Navy’s hospital ship brings advanced medical services to Indonesia

    Chinese Navy’s hospital ship Peace Ark has been operating in Jakarta, Indonesia, since arriving last Thursday, providing free medical care to locals.

    The service has been welcomed by the local residents as more than 700 patients have visited the hospital for the first day. Back in 2013, the Peace Ark visited Indonesia to provide medical services for the first time.

    Invited by the Indonesian military, the ship is slated to stay for seven days from November 11-17. Over 100 Chinese medical workers are onboard, with 14 clinical departments and a pharmacy, as well as a helicopter for emergency medical use. Surgical treatment and hospitalization are also part of the services available.

    The hospital ship also plans to carry out online seminars with local hospitals about patient cases, as well as online video consultations on rare diseases.

    Equipped with cutting-edge medical technologies, the Peace Ark is a large mobile hospital at sea with great advantages to serving residents on the islands or those affected by disasters who might lack access to medical services….

  20. Macroduck

    Intolerance of groups is often, strangely enough, exhibited more strongly against small differences than against fundamental ones.
    — Sigmund Freud

    This tendency to squabble over small differences is, it turns out, pretty easy to exploit. As some of you may recall, I see evidence in JohnH’s behavior that he is not the progressive warrior he claims to be. Rather, he is a rightwing or possibly Russia-affiliated operative pretending to be a leftie; I simply cannot believe that a real leftie could be as ignorant as Johnny. Johnny’s behavior is most simply u derstood as an effort to use small differences to drive wedges between the political left, inservice of the political rghti.

    Just as an example, Johnny wants us to be mad because Democrats are about to replace the first female Speaker of the House with the first black Minority Leader. More to the point, Johnny wants to question the progressive bona fides of anyone who approves of this choice of Minority Leader.

    Let’s take look at who has position and power in the two main U.S. parties, who is included.

    Democrats have elected a black man to the presidency, and have nominated a woman as its presidential candidate. The current Vice President is a woman of color, a Democrat. Republicans have never chosen a woman or a minority member as their presidential candidate, but once had a white female vice presidential candidate.

    The top House Democrat has for several years been a woman. Very likely, the top House Democrat next year will be a black man. Meanwhile, House Republicans have chosen three white men to lead their House caucus next year. No woman or person of color has held any of the three top House positions among Republicans.

    Of non-white members of the 117th Congress, 83% were Democrats, 17% Republican.

    A number of Representatives and Senators from both parties have been outted as gay over the years, but the first one to come out as gay while in office was Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts. He won re-election after coming out.

    Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, is the first non-incumbant candidate to win a first term in the U.S. Congress after coming out.

    The senior Senator from Arizona is a bi-sexual woman, a Democrat.

    George Santos will be the first and oopenlynly gay Republican to be elected to Congress when he takes office in January.

    Off the openly gay members of the 117th Congress, all are Democrats.

    Democrats support Obamacare; Republicans have voted dozens of time to overturn it.

    Democrats mostly openly support science as a basis for policy; Republicans mostly do not.

    Democrats mostly support Medicare and Social Security; Republicans mostly want them whittled away.

    Johnny is outraged that Democrats aren’t turning away from their constituents in their choice of leaders. Hang on… didn’t Republicans just underperformed in an election by pursuing policies which were not favored by their constituents? Johnny apparently doesn’t understand how democracy works. Johnny doesn’t want the vastly more progressive policies and representation of Democrats to be recognized. Mighty suspicious…

    1. pgl

      Republicans may place a woman in leadership position – uberracist Marjorie Taylor Greene. JohnH’s kind of gal!

      1. JohnH

        pgl still seems to think that support for a particular legislative issue equates to supporting the obnoxious representative who introduced it!

        According to pgl’s logic, if I enthusiastically supported LBJ’s Great Society initiatives meant logically I must have supported his Vietnam War. Black or white. You’re with us or you’re against us. What an idiot!

        1. pgl

          “pgl still seems to think that support for a particular legislative issue equates to supporting the obnoxious representative who introduced it!”

          This from the lying troll who defended his support of Marjorie Taylor Greene? Yea right. One more time liar – I actively protested against the Vietnam War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq and you were nowhere to be found like the little coward you really are.

    2. JohnH

      Funny! I wrote only a couple days ago that the new governor of Oregon is a lesbian. The previous one was openly bi-sexual. And the mayor of Portland is gay. And I voted for them. Their identity didn’t matter to me or to the majority of Oregan voters. But what made me vote FOR them was that they had the gumption to enact a corporate tax on revenues and defeat the subsequent push back from huge corporations, which raised a lot of money for schools, healthcare and other social programs that the national Democratic party claims to support but usually showers with benign neglect.

      What’s also funny is that MacroDucky’s imagination really runs amok charging me with all sorts of bad attitudes towards minorities…attitudes that I don’t have and never express…anywhere. I criticize politicians for their stands and their behavior, not their identity.

      But what MacroDucky fails to acknowledge is Democrats’ corruption and fawning attitudes toward corporate America…apparently because he approves of all the corruption and pandering. It’s despicable that minorities at the apex of power have to abandon the interests of their own struggling constituents and act as stooges to their Big Money patrons. But MacroDucky is OK with that!

      Sadly, MacroDucky expresses no qualms about Democrats’ deference and sucking up to Corporate America. Strange that an “economist’ doesn’t notice how business friendly politicians (Democratic and Republican) are responsible for policies that are driving inequality and lower incomes for the majority of Americans, particularly minorities. But he doesn’t care enough about those minorities to even point that out.

      1. Macroduck

        Johnny! You draw the wildest conclusions! But that’s all you’ve got, so of course you draw wild conclusions.

        Here’s what actually happened. Johnny wants to say bad things about Democrats. Some of the bad things Johnny says about Democrats are silly exaggerations. When pgl called Johnny out, Johnny doubled down on exaggerations. I entered the discussion in the way I often try to do, providing facts and a logical framework in which to use those facts. Johnny sees facts and logic as threats to his happiness. Johnny’s response is to claim that anyone who disagrees with him is on the side of the bad thing Johnny has exaggerated. If you don’t swallow Johnny’s exaggerations, you must, must, must be on the side of evil.

        Such is the level at which Johnny thinks. Same with his economic thinking. Same with international relations. It’s all Johnny is capable of. Sad little Johnny.

        1. JohnH

          And what was I to conclude from MacroDucky’s screed that charged me with all sorts of bad attitudes related to race and gender?

          What MacroDucky can’t seem to get through his pea-brain is that most of my attacks on Democrats relate to economic policies and corruption and have absolutely nothing to do with gender or race. No matter your race, gender, identity, or political affiliation, you can advocate bad policies. It’s the policies, stupid!

          MacroDucky probably wasn’t around when I criticized Bill Clinton for China PNTR and repeal of Glass-Steagall. But if he had been around, he probably would have chosen to conclude that my criticisms were nothing but hetero-phobia, anti-White racism, and misandry! Ridiculous? You bet!

          What’s interesting is that MacroDucky, being the corporate-friendly economist that he is, has little to say about declining real wages, corporate-driven inflation, rising inequality, etc. Cat got his tongue? No, he deflects attention from his corporate sympathies by resorting to smears, name calling, and casting aspersions.

      2. pgl

        “What’s also funny is that MacroDucky’s imagination really runs amok charging me with all sorts of bad attitudes towards minorities…attitudes that I don’t have and never express…anywhere. I criticize politicians for their stands and their behavior, not their identity.”

        You have been promoting the garbage from Marjorie Taylor Greene – which speaks volumes. And you have blasted Obama while praising Cameron. Huh!

        1. JohnH

          Once again pgl thinks its more important to demonize an opponent than to support legislation that would audit how the $Billions in Ukraine aid are being spent. It seems that pgl is in favor of turning the US into a kleptocracy like Ukraine…as long as it is the “Defense” department and Democrats who get to do the stealing (unaudited, of course!)

        2. JohnH

          pgl still can’t stomach the idea of auditing aid to Ukraine…it shows how corrupt Democratic partisan hacks have become!

          1. pgl

            I never opposed audits. I do oppose letting Russian soldiers raping old Ukrainian women. Which of course turns you on.

    3. pgl

      Another excellent comment. But we all know by now that Johnny boy is working for Marjorie Taylor Greene hoping to divide the Democrats. Poor little Johnny – his efforts are failing:

      https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/hakeem-jeffries-confident-he-can-unite-dems-after-pelosi-exit-says-he-has-great-respect-for-aoc/ar-AA14kLPw?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=dec581b2c170427989f9575dcd4c3235

      Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., expressed optimism that Democrats can be united following the retirement of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, arguing the party’s diversity would remain one of its strengths under his potential leadership…. ep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., expressed optimism that Democrats can be united following the retirement of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, arguing the party’s diversity would remain one of its strengths under his potential leadership. “I have great respect for Representative Ocasio-Cortez and every single member of the house Democratic Caucus,” Jeffries said. “The majesty of the House Democratic Caucus is that we are so incredibly diverse, in terms of race and gender and religion and sexual orientation, region, life experience, and even ideology from the left to progressives, New Dems, Blue Dogs, moderate and centrist Democrats, all points in between.”

      Now Johnny boy has no respect for these Democrats but why would he since he is on the payroll of Marjorie Taylor Greene?

      1. JohnH

        The usual unfounded and unprovoked character assassination–“Johnny boy is working for Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

        What I do support is legislation to make sure that US aid to Ukraine is carefully tracked and audited. Who could disagree with that?
        Having all government agencies–including DOD–undergo and PASS their audits is fundamental to good government…else we become a kleptocracy like Ukraine.

        But pgl disagrees. And on top of that, if a Republican proposes it, he’s doubly opposed!

        1. pgl

          “What I do support is legislation to make sure that US aid to Ukraine is carefully tracked and audited.”

          Greene’s proposal is a not so thinly veiled attempt to divert funds away from the Ukrainians defending this homeland so your boy Putin can slaughter them to building Trump’s racist wall on the Mexican border. Yea – you love the fact that Ukrainians are being slaughtered and I’m sure you follow Princeton Steve’s agenda of making sure no Hispanic lives in Cape Cod.

          You are claim you are not a racist pig but backing the Greene agenda suggests otherwise.

          1. JohnH

            What’s so bad about diverting funds from Ukraine if the funds in question are being pilfered and misused? Oh, I know, It’s a Republican who advocates good government legislation. Horrors! Question is, why didn’t Pelosi just steal Green’s thunder, get legislation passed, and take all the credit for it? Why tolerate corruption? Why tolerate even the perception that Democrats support a totally unaccountable blank check for Ukraine?

            By not supported government audits, pgl is advocating kleptocracy.

          2. Barkley Rosser

            JohnH,

            I just googled “stolen defense funds for Ukraine.” After 30 hits I got two stories. One was in May that forecast that some funds would probably get stolen. It did not report any had been.

            The other from August was from CBS news reporting that “not all” the military aid is getting to the frontlines. US General Homan was in Ukraine to examine the situation. The leakage, not all that great, happens within Ukraine, where the US cannot control what is going on, but the vast majority gets to the frontlines, as the effectiveness of the aid against the Russian invaders is readily visible, most recently with Russia retreating from Kherson, where we are now seeing evidence of massive war crimes, torture and executions of civilians.

            There is no “kleptoctaci” diversion in the US, so if sending aid to Ukraine is supporting “kleptocracy” it is in Ukraine. Buit, yet again, JohnH, the bigger kleoptocrat is the invader, Russia, with many reports from there of massive diversion of militaty goods. We should help the greater kleptocrat, the Russian invaders by not helping those they are invading because some of the aid is getting diverted?

          3. Anonymous

            pgl,

            feed the skeptics!

            “you love the fact that ukrainians are being slaughtered”

            barks, and a lot of other pro kiev pundits, keeps saying it’s the russians who are being slaughtered.

            greene’s alleged racism does not deny the need to audit money and arms going in to the kiev black hole.

            you (w/barks who types too much) are a purveyor of both mis-information and dis-information and support this with ad hominem and rudeness.

            intent in a pundit’s use of dis and mis information implies attempt to brainwash.

            you and barks w/md fail to challenge even the novice skeptic.

        2. pgl

          JohnH
          November 21, 2022 at 7:21 am

          You are the most two faced troll ever. BTW – I do not oppose audits. I do oppose the racist BS that you and Marjorie Taylor Greend support.

      2. pgl

        This story backs up what Macroduck has been saying:

        https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/democrats-slam-kevin-mccarthy-vow-remove-committees-rcna58159

        After Republicans narrowly won control of the House in the midterm elections, McCarthy this weekend doubled down on his pledge to remove several prominent House Democrats from their committee assignments if he becomes speaker. McCarthy said he would not allow Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota to serve on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, both of California, on the House Intelligence Committee. In a tweet posted Saturday alongside a video clip, McCarthy said that he would keep his promise to remove Omar “based on her repeated antisemitic and anti-American remarks.” He made similar comments during an appearance on Fox News on Sunday. Omar issued a blistering statement Monday in response to McCarthy’s remarks, taking aim at Republicans for making it “their mission to use fear, xenophobia, Islamophobia and racism to target me on the House Floor and through millions of dollars of campaign ads.”

        Omar is calling out not only McCarthy but also racist Marjorie Taylor Greene. Now Johnny boy’s attempts to smear Hakeem Jeffiries is nothing more than a deflection from Greene’s rise to power and how it is McCarthy is the one trying to purge progressives. But no criticism of this from Johnny boy. Why? Oh yea – he is on their payroll.

    4. Moses Herzog

      I’ve always been a Barney Frank fan. Have two thick books about him somewhere here in the house. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve only read small fractions of them. He made some mistakes along the way with letting his personal things effect his work, but overall his contributions have been way more positive to America than negative.

  21. pgl

    Something we in NYC unfortunately have to deal with:

    https://nypost.com/2022/11/19/man-arrested-for-making-threats-to-nyc-synagogues/

    An unhinged 22-year-old man has been arrested for making threats to Big Apple synagogues, sources said. The suspect, Christopher Brown, was collared at the Long Island Rail Road platform at Penn Station late Friday night, carrying weapons and a Nazi armband recovered in his bag, the sources added. The twisted suspect was wearing a T-shirt that said, “I have a gun and I’m schizophrenic,” according to the sources. The phrase on the shirt was written in reverse. The FBI/NYPD Joint Task force had been on the trail of Brown, a “diagnosed schizophrenic” who recently made overtures to family that he was interested in going to New York and buying a gun, the sources said. Brown, of Aquebogue, was arrested at 11:30 p.m. and charged with making terroristic threats, aggravated harassment and criminal possession of a weapon, the NYPD said.

    Many thanks to the excellent NYPD, Of course MAGA hat types really should STFU that people like me want to defund my police as I want more payments to responsible police. And of course the same MAGA pieces of garbage encourage NAZI terrorists like this.

  22. ltr

    Just as the risks of coronavirus reinfection are being studied and confirmed, * the New York Times is writing about the seeming ineffectiveness of vaccine boosters in preventing reinfection. ** This would seem to be ample reason to look to a range of ways to limit the continued spread of the coronavirus:

    * https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02051-3

    November 10, 2022

    Acute and postacute sequelae associated with SARS-CoV-2 reinfection
    By Benjamin Bowe, Yan Xie & Ziyad Al-Aly

    ** https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/18/health/covid-boosters-surge.html

    November 18, 2022

    Will Covid Boosters Prevent Another Wave? Scientists Aren’t So Sure.
    The shots may help older, pregnant and immunocompromised Americans dodge serious illness or death. But the doses are not likely to prevent infections in any group, recent studies suggest.
    By Apoorva Mandavilli

  23. ltr

    https://www.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-infections/children-and-covid-19-state-level-data-report/

    November 10, 2022

    Cumulative Number of Child COVID-19 Cases

    As of November 10th, nearly 15 million children are reported to have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic according to available state reports. Around 105,200 of these cases have been added in the past 4 weeks. This week almost 28,200 child COVID-19 cases were reported, a slight decline from the prior week.

    14,950,786 total child COVID-19 cases reported, and children represented 18.3% (14,950,786 / 81,661,006) of all cases

    Overall rate: 19,864 cases per 100,000 children in the population

    American Academy of Pediatrics
    Children’s Hospital Association

  24. pgl

    China imports a lot of copper from places like Australia and Chile. Did you know that Chile’s main copper producer charges a premium to Chinese customers?

    https://www.mining.com/web/codelco-proposes-33-price-hike-for-chinese-copper-buyers-for-2023-sources/

    Chile’s Codelco, the world’s biggest copper miner, has proposed a premium of $140 a tonne for 2023 supplies to at least two Chinese customers, a 33.3% increase from this year, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The proposed premium, up from $105 a tonne this year, is paid on top of London Metal Exchange (LME) copper prices for physical delivery of copper cathodes into China, the world’s top copper consumer, and is a widely watched industry benchmark.

    LME prices are near $7700 per metric ton of $3.56 per pound. This premium would be almost 2% of the benchmark price.

    1. ltr

      Did you know that Chile’s main copper producer charges a premium to Chinese customers?

      [ Please add to this, should there be an explanation.

      Thank you. ]

        1. ltr

          READ the story. Geesh!

          [ I am unable to do so, but I thank you for the response and typical politeness. ]

        2. ltr

          And this Trumpian POS still lost….
          And this Trumpian POS still lost….
          And this Trumpian POS still lost….

          [ Typical. ]

      1. pgl

        Maybe there is a simple explanation. I just endured some weird transfer pricing seminar that talked about the strength and weaknesses of something called the Sixth Method which in the case of copper would be the use of the LME quote. Of course this quote needs to be adjusted for things like shipping costs. And of course Codelco copper is mined in Chile and the cost of shipping to places like China or Europe are not exactly low right now.

        But I’m just speculating as I do not work for Codelco.

    2. ltr

      https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-11-20/Int-l-copper-futures-launch-boosts-China-s-influence-on-global-markets-VzZpRvRcYw/index.html

      November 20, 2020

      International copper futures’ launch is a boost to China’s influence on global markets
      By Matteo Giovannini

      China’s opening up policy proceeds at full steam through continuous announcements of initiatives in the financial sector that are aimed at creating a welcoming environment to foreign capitals and investors while increasing the status of a domestic market that is rapidly reducing the gap in terms of size and influence with long-time dominating Western markets.

      The most recent announcement comes from this week when China announced to have rolled out a new copper futures contract, after a formal approval received by the national securities regulator on October 23. It provides foreign institutional firms and traders with the opportunity to get exposure to the world’s largest consumer of this metal….

      1. pgl

        “Copper, the world’s most traded base metal, is now available for trading on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE), following the steps of other important alternative assets such as gold, silver, and crude oil that have previously launched contracts in yuan on China’s soil. It is not considered particularly precious but has played a major role in technology and industrial expansion.
        The launch of this metal’s futures contract is relevant because it provides at the domestic level a complementarity offer since a copper contract already exists on the Shanghai Futures Exchanges (ShFE), but it is not accessible to foreign investors unless a local company is set up for this purpose. In addition, the move offers a higher level of diversification to the global commodities market. Shanghai now represents the third international copper contract in addition to the London Metal Exchange (LME) and CME Group in Chicago. But differently from them, it provides future contracts in a currency that is not the U.S. dollar.”

        Interesting. I’m rather used to working with annoying lawyers who think LME is the only market out there. Good to see the dominance of LME is being challenged.

  25. ltr

    https://english.news.cn/20221120/3f7e576112cc4280929a951ce16cdaee/c.html

    November 20, 2022

    Pooling Asian wisdom for better global governance

    * In his speech at the G20 summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping called on G20 members to stand with each other in the face of risks and challenges, join hands together, and elevate win-win cooperation to a new height.
    * China’s goal is to work with all parties to champion the spirit of the UN Charter, act on the principle of indivisible security, uphold the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, advocate the resolution of conflicts through negotiation and settlement of disputes through consultation, and support all efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of crises, Xi said.
    * Development is real only when all countries develop together, and prosperity and stability cannot be possible in a world where the rich become richer while the poor are made poorer, Xi noted.

    BEIJING — Thailand’s traditional woven bamboo basket, chalom, was transformed into the logo of this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, delivering a wish to weave together the strengths of APEC members to overcome current geopolitical and economic headwinds.

    Amid grave global challenges unseen in decades, the 17th Group of 20 (G20) Summit in Bali, Indonesia and the 29th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Bangkok, Thailand gathered world leaders in two Asian countries, ushering in an “Asian moment” in global governance.

    In his first foreign trip after the conclusion of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Chinese President Xi Jinping attended both gatherings and participated in more than 30 events in six days, which sent out a resounding message on promoting global development and leading global governance, demonstrating China’s role as a rational, confident and responsible major country.

    SOLIDARITY & DETERMINATION

    In a declaration adopted at the end of the G20 Bali Summit, the G20 leaders said that collectively they carry responsibilities, and their cooperation is necessary for global economic recovery, tackling global challenges and laying the foundation for strong, sustainable, balanced, and inclusive growth.

    Three days later, leaders of the APEC economies also issued a declaration, vowing that APEC’s cooperation will contribute to practical solutions for common challenges and complement global efforts including the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

    The solidarity and determination demonstrated in the two documents resonated with China’s appeal for international cooperation in tackling global challenges and its commitment to enhancing world stability and prosperity.

    In his speech at the G20 summit, Xi called on G20 members to stand with each other in the face of risks and challenges, join hands together, and elevate win-win cooperation to a new height.

    The G20 should stay committed to its founding purpose of unity and cooperation, carry forward the spirit of solidarity, and uphold the principle of consensus, Xi said, adding that division and confrontation serve no one’s interest, and only solidarity and common development is the right choice to make.

    Reviewing the past decades of robust economic cooperation and remarkable growth in the region, Xi said in a written speech at APEC CEO Summit that “the Asia-Pacific miracle has been created by all of us working hand in hand and overcoming difficulties and obstacles.” …

    1. Macroduck

      “Pooling Asian wisdom for better global governance”

      Racist title.

      “Development is real only when all countries develop together…”

      Vacuous, feel-good rhetoric.

      “…and prosperity and stability cannot be possible in a world where the rich become richer while the poor are made poorer, Xi noted.”

      A remarkably hypocritical thing for a Chinese leader to say:

      https://www.grid.news/story/global/2022/07/26/chinas-economic-inequality-is-worse-than-americas-and-the-pandemic-hasnt-helped/

    2. Macroduck

      More on Xi’s hypocrisy in denouncing inequality:

      https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2015/07/30/does-the-developing-world-need-a-welfare-state-to-eliminate-poverty-some-insights-from-history/

      When the U.S., Germany, the UK and other of the first round of developed countries had the same per capita GDP as China had now, those countries had more equal income and wealth distribution than China has now. Those countries had also already adopted social welfare systems more generous than China has now. China is a less egalitarian country than late-19th to mid-20th century western countries.

      1. Moses Herzog

        I noticed Menzie’s posts are getting more interspersed lately and I was wondering if he was ok, then it dawned on me this time of year gets more intensive prepping students for finals and grading gunk.

  26. pgl

    Will 2024 be a redux of 2016 with many losers hoping to get the GOP nomination leaving us with Trump?

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-s-growing-gop-challengers-revive-fears-of-2016-repeat/ar-AA14kDuN?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=55a013b07a254f57a12e5aa1516e8861

    List of losers here: Haley, Cruz, DeSantis, Christie, Pence, Pompeo, Rick Scott

    Now there 3 people who are not utterly disgusting: Hogan, Sununu, and Tim Scott.

    But alas the current Republican Party will likely go for one of the losers and maybe the biggest loser ever – Trump.

    1. Moses Herzog

      The wild card here, that hasn’t quite registered or “sunk in” to people’s minds yet, is if donald trump loses the nomination, then runs as independent candidate. It’s not as unlikely as some people are measuring. He would use it both as leverage/threat against Republicans, and purely as a revenge move, thinking Republicans had “turned” on him.

  27. pgl

    JohnH reminds me a lot of Bruce Hall. Brucie loves to provide links to articles where Brucie only read the headline never realizing the actual story was different contradicting the lunacy Brucie wrote. JohnH is trying to lecture Macroduck and me over what has been driving mortgage rates as he links to a story that confirms what I and Macroduck have been saying. Yea – Johnny boy read a stupid headline and decides to go off in his usual sheer ignorance.

    But another classic trait of Bruce Hall has always been to cite as an expert some discrediting right wing nutcase. And when we point this out – Brucie goes all whiny that checking his sources is not fair. Of course Johnny boy in his zest to justify Putin’s war crimes in the Ukraine has treated us to something written by an incompetent troll who writes for Sputnik News and some Cato nutcase who thinks all of Ukraine is corrupt and deserving of the Russian occupation.

    Hey Brucie – get busy as JohnH is blowing you away as troll of the century!

  28. pgl

    Oh dear – Rick Scott wants to be the tough guy:

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/florida-sen-rick-scott-says-republicans-should-stop-compromising-with-democrats-arguing-that-senate-gop-leaders-routinely-cave-in-to-joe-biden-and-chuck-schumer/ar-AA14lhPC?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=37a9a73659264dbb960eff98ec6006ef

    Sen. Rick Scott said GOP leaders had become too accommodating to Democratic leaders in Washington.
    The Florida lawmaker spoke this weekend before the Jewish Republican Coalition in Las Vegas.
    “Republican leaders in the Senate routinely cave in and allow Schumer and Biden to win,” he said.
    Sen. Rick Scott on Saturday said that Republicans should “stop compromising” with Democrats and criticized his party’s leadership team in the upper chamber, accusing them of “routinely” caving in to President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

    There it is folks. The Rick Scott agenda is to end Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, and any efforts to address climate change. No comprises. Just massive tax cuts for the rich and drill baby drill. MAGA!

  29. pgl

    World Cup Group B news. England 6 Iran 2. USA plays Wales soon. Maybe we need a win to advance given how the English may destroy the rest of the group.

  30. pgl

    Now I do get that everyone is tired of the parade of blatant lies and incredibly dumb comments emanating from JohnH but please bear with me as this line (which he used earlier) is perhaps the dumbest thing ever:

    ‘JohnH
    November 20, 2022 at 3:24 pm
    pgl and MacroDucky claim to have raised the issue of the unusually high spread between 10 year Treasury and 30 year mortgage rates.’

    We it is true that I do not use such a STUPID measure for credit spreads and given the incredibly smart comment from MacroDucky – I doubt he would do such an incredibly stupid thing either. Measuring credit spreads requires maturity matching – which I thought EVERYONE knoew. So yea the spread between a 30 year mortgage and a 30 year government bond rate would be meaningful. When the smart folks at Bloomberg or Refinitiv or S&P capital look at a 30 year corporate bond yield – they do not make the idiotic mistake of subtracting the 10 year government bond yield. If they did – their clients would turn to someone not so dumb.

    But here we have our Village Idiot making a clear error that I would think even preK kids would avoid.

  31. pgl

    OK I gave Johnny boy a homework assignment to calculated PROPERLY the spread between the 30 year mortgage rate and the 30 year government bond rate for October 2008. Note above this village idiot claimed the current spread = 2.8% when the rest of the kids in his preK class know it is 2.7%. Which is high I admit but something tells me he never did a proper Google search when he claims this spread has never been higher in US history.

    OK a little cheat sheet for the rest of you. The spread in Oct. 2008 was only 2.5%. But wait – go back to November 6, 1980 when the 30 year government bond rate = 13.85% and the 30 year mortgage rate = 18.37%. Now be good people and help little Johnny boy calculate the credit spread back then. I bet this ranch it was a bit higher than 2.7%. But be patient with Johnny as this kind of arithmetic is too hard for the boy.

  32. pgl

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE

    I noted earlier that the FED has lowered the monetary base by $1 trillion lately. Something called tight money. Of course our Know Nothing troll made a BIG deal that the FED’s holdings of Mortgage Back Securities recently fell slightly.

    Oh Oh Johnny reads some dumb story that the FED stopped “buying” these securities and he got all excited that this was the great sea change in monetary policy. Well yea – the FED sold a tiny portion of its massive holding of these securities but Johnny boy as usual gets all excited over words he never understood.

  33. Macroduck

    An outrageous idea has surfaced among lawmakers since the election. Republican House are threatening bipartisanship:

    https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/21/gop-centrists-flex-muscles-00069541

    It’s too early to know if that’s just a power play – moderates need McCarthy and McCarthy needs right-wing crazy votes to gain the speakership.

    The next batch of primaries is just around the corner. Bipartisanship is not a winning campaign issue for Republicans in primary races, whatever swing voters want in the general.

    1. Macroduck

      Would not be surprised if Democrats use timely increase in the debt ceiling as a precondition for negotiation on other issues.

      1. Barkley Rosser

        MD,

        II do not see this as an issue Dems should be negotiating with GOP over right now. They need to increase it big time, or, better yet, just get rid of the darned thing, although probably Manchin will not allow it. The problem here is Dems negotiating with themselves, with figures ranging from Manchin to Biden to even Bernie Sanders somehow not getting that this needs to get done through reconciliiation NOW, or indeed Dems will be stuck “negotiating” with Kevn McCarthy about it all to soon, as last estimate I saw is that June is when debt ceiling gets run into. That will be here before we all know it.

      2. Moses Herzog

        I’m more curious if the replacement for Pelosi can be an effective leader. Instead of a mouse when the Republican President’s Treasury Secretary asks her to take the Republican President’s A$$ out of the frying pan. Get something in return for pulling his A$$ out. What does she do?? “Oh, well, certainly, how can I save the opposition??~~after their own clusterF—” Useless to the party, good riddance, you should have retired the gavel YEARS ago.

        Trump never would have had the soil to grow out of if the woman knew how to deliver and not obsess over ice cream, her grandkids, and her forever frozen (under ANY context) Cruella De Vil smile.

        1. Barkley Rosser

          Moses,

          Sigh. You make the nauseating Kevin McCarthy look gracious.

          We get it you never iiked her, and hopefully we shall not have to read your totally inappropriate, sick and stupid rants against her anymore. Besides her eating ice cream, what was your biggest substantive complaint? Recently you were going on about how she did not imprach Trump sooner, although that would not have led to any different outcome. Still would have been acquitted by Senate, and might have looked even weaker than it did with her holding off.

          I realize that although nearly every commentator out there, including even some GOP ones, are praising her accurately as one of the most effective House Speakers in our entire history, you somehow cannot givc her ctredit for her many accomplishments. These last two years she had a bare majority in the House, with a deeply split party. But she managed to get through a bunch of major legislation that had been long needed, such as the infrastructure bill. It was also she who got Obamare through, even though many were unhappy about it at the time and GOP ran successfully against it in 2010. But over time it has come to be popular and recognized as a major achievement, and just barely got through.

          Sorry, but dumping o nher at this point just reminds people how petty and downright sick you can be, Moses.

    2. Ivan

      One possible outcome of the crazies going “all or nothing” could be that a handful of moderate GOP house members switch party.

      1. Macroduck

        The big payoff for switching is to swing the majority. Otherwise, the risk isn’t justified. A House Republican who regularly wins the independent vote and lots of registered Democrats mght consider it. Someone thrown to the wolves in the latest reapportionment but who managed to win this time would be a good candidate for a party switch. Hell would ran down in the next primary from local Democratic opponents, the from national Republicans in the general. It’s a highly risky choice.

        Right now, at least two House Members would have to flip to change the majority. Looks like five would need to flip after all the counting is done. That narrow margin improves the odds, but it’s still a long shot.

  34. Macroduck

    Big new study on the causes of increased wage dispersion by education:

    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3982/ECTA19815

    Automation gets a bigger share of the blame than in some past research. Some, but not all. This piece, also very clever, find that replacing repetitive human action – screwing in screws, checking out groceries, driving fork trucks – with machines accounts for 50% to 70% ofthe change in wage structure over the past four decades:

    https://www.nber.org/papers/w28920

    The authors identify what they call “so-so automation”, which does little for society as a whole, but redistributes money upward. The answer, of course, is for labor to ask so little that “so-so automation” doesn’t pay – upward redistribution without job loss.

  35. pgl

    Hershel Walker has a plan to reduce inflation – get racist Archie Bunker on the TV!

    https://www.wonkette.com/herschel-walker-just-wondering-why-raphael-warnock-canceled-archie-bunker

    Walker continued demonstrating his command over relevant issues this weekend when he blamed Warnock for canceling “All In The Family,” which stopped airing in 1979 when the senator was 10. In fairness, Walker’s actual point was far stupider than this.

    Herschel Walker blamed Raphael Warnock for 1970s TV show Archie Bunker not being “on the air today.” Walker: “I used to love Archie Bunker. Did you not like Archie Bunker? But because of Senator Warnock, it wouldn’t be on the air because he’s still living in the past.”

    Check out the entire discussion as it is clear that Hershel Walker never understood what this show was really about. Yea – Hershel is quite stupid.

  36. pgl

    https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-11-22/top-us-diplomat-criticizes-fifa-armband-threat-at-world-cup

    DOHA, Qatar (AP) — America’s top diplomat on Tuesday criticized a decision by FIFA to threaten players at the World Cup with yellow cards if they wear armbands supporting inclusion and diversity. Speaking alongside his Qatari counterpart at a news conference, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was “always concerning … when we see any restrictions on freedom of expression.” “It’s especially so when the expression is for diversity and for inclusion,” Blinken said at Doha’s Diplomatic Club. “And in my judgment, at least no one on a football pitch should be forced to choose between supporting these values and playing for their team.” Just hours before the first players with the armbands in support of the “One Love” campaign were to take the field on Monday, soccer’s governing body warned they would immediately be shown yellow cards — two of which lead to a player’s expulsion from that game and also the next.

    I support this One Love campaign. FIFA should stay the eff out. And to abuse yellow cards – WTF in FIFA came up with idea which would denegrate the competition? Hooray to Blinken. Let the athletes have their freedom of expression and do not mess with the World Cup games.

    And while we are at it – can we just fire everyone of the heads of the corrupt FIFA? Soccer deserves better than these clowns.

    1. pgl

      As much as I regretted Qatar getting the World Cup, let’s be thankful that it was not scheduled to be in China.

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