[ Posted Thursday, March 26th, 2020 – 17:06 UTC ]
The Department of Labor just announced a rather staggering number -- almost 3.3 million new unemployment insurance claims nationwide in the past week alone. That sets a grim new record for this one-week statistic, far outpacing any previous spike (it's never even gone above one million before, ever). But this record is almost certain to be a huge undercount, which means that next week could be much worse. And by the time they get around to releasing the adjusted numbers (which usually takes a few months) which show the actual reality of the situation, we'll all have moved on.
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[ Posted Monday, March 23rd, 2020 – 15:48 UTC ]
I am not a macroeconomist. In fact, I am not an economist of any type whatsoever. I begin with these admissions because what I'm about to write is probably wrong in some major way, and/or impossible to accomplish, and/or would have some sort of counterproductive effect that I just haven't thought about. In other words, any real economist could probably shoot this idea full of holes without even breaking a sweat. But I feel I have to at least toss it out there for the purposes of discussion.
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[ Posted Friday, March 20th, 2020 – 17:17 UTC ]
We're kidding, of course. Neither of these stories -- which, in normal times would have been covered extensively by the media -- even caused a blip on the radar this week. Because the nation is gripped in the midst of a viral pandemic and we've got the Keystone Kops running the response. Which, admittedly, is a much bigger story to focus on.
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[ Posted Thursday, March 19th, 2020 – 16:26 UTC ]
It's time for Bernie to make an exit from the Democratic presidential nomination race. I don't say this lightly, as I'm actually a Bernie supporter myself. I voted for him this year and back in 2016 as well. I feel free to now say this because I never admit to my own preferences while I think the race is still up in the air -- my own way of attempting to limit my bias in my writing. But I do feel free to say it now, because the race is now essentially over.
Joe Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee this time around. At this point, barring any completely unexpected and drastic changes in circumstance, it is realistically impossible for Bernie Sanders to catch him in the delegate race. This was not true until the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, but it is true now. Which is why Bernie needs to concede this reality.
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[ Posted Monday, March 16th, 2020 – 16:15 UTC ]
The administration of President Donald Trump is showing us all, in real time, how not to tackle a widespread medical crisis. Because things are moving so quickly, though, it's tough to tell how much of their woefully inadequate response has been the fault of Donald Trump himself, Trump's scorn for experts of any type who know more things than he does (a category which includes many people, for obvious reasons), or Trump's advisors and aides who have been put in charge of a massive problem but whose main worry seems to be not ever contradicting Trump in public (no matter how wrong Trump gets things). It all adds up to making a bad situation much worse, which is precisely where we find ourselves now. Decisions are made for political reasons, or -- worse -- to avoid making Trump himself look bad in any way. This has shattered the confidence of the stock market, as evidenced by today's record-busting 3,000-point drop. The more time goes by, the more Trump's inadequacies are becoming impossible to ignore, even by his staunchest supporters. Donald Trump, quite obviously, does not have a clue what to do next, is instead out there blatantly lying about the situation on a daily basis, and we're all going to suffer as a direct result. No wonder the market's tanking.
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[ Posted Friday, March 13th, 2020 – 16:54 UTC ]
In a surreal bit of coincidence this week, America saw a simultaneous broadcast of President Trump stumbling and lying his way through a primetime Oval Office address, while on another channel former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin danced around in a frilly pink bear costume while rapping "Baby Got Back," which contains the memorable line: "I like big butts and I cannot lie...." Signs of the impending apocalypse? You be the judge. What flashed through our mind was the old quote from Hunter S. Thompson: "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Or, as we might put it (with a fake Sarah Palin accent): "How's that 'stable genius' stuff workin' out for ya now?"
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[ Posted Wednesday, March 11th, 2020 – 17:09 UTC ]
The stock market is now officially in bear market territory. Thus endeth the longest bull market in history, which lasted for the 11 years from just after the Great Recession's end until now. For those unfamiliar with the terms, the "bear market" designation is defined as: "losing 20 percent from the market's peak." Less than a month ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average topped 29,500. Today it closed right around 23,500 -- a loss of roughly 6,000 points. And we may not have hit bottom, although with the current volatility it's tough to tell.
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[ Posted Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 15:39 UTC ]
Nobody, it seems, has come up with a name for today's round of primaries that is catchy enough so that everyone starts universally using it. Some call it Mini Tuesday, some call it Super Tuesday II, but no matter what you call it, the time has come once again to toss our darts at the wall in an effort to try to predict the outcome of the six races being run today in the 2020 Democratic primary race.
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[ Posted Monday, March 9th, 2020 – 16:49 UTC ]
Roman Emperor Nero didn't actually fiddle while Rome burned. It's a myth. Violins (or "fiddles") wouldn't exist for another 1,500 years or so, making the very concept impossible. That's not to say Nero might not have blatantly ignored a flaming crisis, of course, it's just quibbling about the literal meaning of the maxim. Now, American Emperor-With-No-Clothes Donald Trump didn't fiddle while the country was hit by a pandemic, either. Instead, he played golf. Twice. That's right -- in the midst of a huge crisis, Trump spent the entire weekend playing golf.
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[ Posted Friday, March 6th, 2020 – 18:09 UTC ]
The stock market is crashing daily, a pandemic is sweeping America, a tornado in Tennessee just killed two dozen people, so of course First Lady Melania Trump decided to reassure the public with a message designed to calm people in these perilous times. The message? Don't worry, everyone -- the construction of the new White House tennis pavilion was still on track. No, seriously -- you just can't make this stuff up. She even donned a hard hat (in order to look fabulous) while making this tone-deaf announcement.
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