Open Thread March 13, 2023

 Posted by at 6:56 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Mar 132023
 

Yesterday, I overslept – slept through my alarm, I think, although I haven’t yet checked to make sure I actually set it to come on; it took me a whle to set it to the time I wanted because the clock zeroed out. It does that sometimes, which is annoying, but it keeps good time otherwise, and it really doesn’t take long to set, especially considering how many functions it has. I did manage to arrive just at the time I had said I would, but a lot of things I normally do were not done. I did greet Virgil for everyone here, as well as for my frosted sister in Florida, who dropped me an email to letmeknow that hew new hurricane windows, ordered in August, which arrived in October, were finally installed, and that her daughter had done some interior painting for her. (My response to her had included my taking offense on her behalf about the water being slandered, and she replied to that with some highly negative evaluation of her governor, along with a greeting for Virgil.) Of course he returns all greetings with appreciation. They have not yet replaced their lone deck of cards, but I found a Scrabble set, and that’s something we can play (we would both prefer UpWords, but they don’t have that.) We had to be told that visitation was over – and that’s a good thing. So it’s going to be Scrabble unless their game inventory changes.

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Short Takes –

The Daily Beast – Kids Do Better In Schools With Teachers Unions
Quote – Research shows that teachers unions are positively associated with student achievement. Researchers Eunice Han and Jeffrey Keefe found that this effect is particularly strong for Hispanic and Black students. And economists Eric Brunner, Joshua Hyman, and Andrew Ju have found that districts with strong teachers unions increased spending on public education, which leads to larger increases in student achievement.
Click through for story. Just off the top of my head, I can think of many reasons why this would be so, and very few why it might not. (Customers aldo do better when dealing with businesses whose workers have unions. CEOs may not get quite such huge bonuses, though.)

Robert Reich – Psst! An urgent message for Jerome Powell
Quote – You and your colleagues on the Fed’s Open Market Committee are considering pushing interest rates much higher in your quest to get inflation down to your target of 2 percent. You believe higher interest rates will reduce consumer spending and slow the economy. With due respect, sir, this is unnecessary, and it would be unjust. Over the past year, you’ve raised interest rates at the fastest pace since the 1980s, from near zero to more than 4.5 percent. But consumer spending isn’t slowing. It fell slightly in November and December but jumped 1.8 percent in January, even faster than inflation.
Click through for full opinion – yes, opinion, but 100% fact based. After the shellacking Elizabeth Warren gave to Powell in committee (it was in a video thread here) perhaps this shouldn’t be necessary. But it probably is.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread August 7, 2022

 Posted by at 6:42 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 072022
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was actually four short operas, two each by two different composers, all from the time that Louis XIV was living in Versailles. They were not presented by an opera company, but by the Boston Early Music Festival – both their Chamber Ensemble and their Vocal Ensemble. However, the program was performed and recorded in the Broadcasting Hall in Bremen, Germany. I can tell you it sounded a whole lot better then the Bremen Town Musicians in the folk tale of the same same (not that that would be difficult.) I’m familiar with Charpentier’s music and I’ve heard of Lalande, but not with these operas and I know virtually zero French, so I just sat back and enjoyed them as early Baroque music – or late Renaissance music (The novel “The Man in the Iron Mask” by Alexandre Dumas is set in Louis Xiv’s Versailles, but it is also the final novel in the Three Musketeers series, or as we might say today, franchise. Athos isn’t in it, nor is his son, who more or less takes his place after the second book, “Twenty Years After” – but D’Artagnan, Aramis, and Porthos are all critical to the plot. But I digress.) The production was lightly staged, fairly heavily costumed (it looks like the same costumes for all four operas, which would certainly be true to period) – in one photo parts of the orchestra can be seen, including three lute players.

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Short Takes –

ProPublica – A Right-Wing Think Tank Claimed to Be a Church. Now, Members of Congress Want to Investigate.
Quote – Reps. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., and Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., raised transparency concerns in a letter to the heads of both agencies following a ProPublica story about the Family Research Council, a right-wing Christian think tank based in Washington, D.C., getting reclassified as a church. Thirty-eight other lawmakers, including Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., signed onto the letter.
Click through for details. Thom Hartmann, in today’s Video Thread, talks a bit about how this happened – and he points ou that it wouldn’t have happened if we had had Democratic Presidents for the last 30 years or so. The ones we did have clawed back Republican irresponsibility some, but not enough … and then came Trump**

HuffPost – Republicans Say Economy Is In Recession After It Added Half A Million Jobs In July
Quote – HuffPost asked the five Republican senators at the presser how July’s job growth could happen in a recession. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) pointed out that in the first and second quarters of the year, the U.S. saw negative growth in gross domestic product, an important economic metric. “The definition of recession is negative GDP growth in two successive quarters,” Cassidy said…. But economists don’t use a simple rule of thumb to figure out when the economy is in recession ― they follow the determinations of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private nonprofit organization that’s served as custodian of the business cycle’s ups and downs since the 1960s.
Click through for full talking points. I assur you that if we were in a recession Maria Bartiromo would not have melted like Frosty the Snowman while trying to put a negative spin on the jobs report on Fox.

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Open Thread June 16, 2022

 Posted by at 6:57 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 162022
 

Yesterday, I spent as much as I could of the day preparing for today. Making sure I had a bottle of ice frozen (in order to have cold water on the way back, and yes, I keep it in an insulated bag, but it still melts some), printing out the compulsory form (pre-filled, because it is way too small to struggle with every time), lining up clothes including shoes (my feet are not just flat as they were when I was on active duty – they now qualify as “deformed” and there are a lot of shoes I can’t walk in, and I do have to walk to the car and then stand loneg enough to get the wheelchair in and out), and just generally being prepared. If any regular reader notics we are a bit low on comments, yes, we are, but it’s temporary. I’m on the road, Pat’s with a family member, and Nameless has out-of-state visitors. I will get to everything eventually to respond (or at least uprate), but I don’t think everyone does. Which is fine.

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Short Takes –

Robert Reich – What you really need to know about the likelihood of a recession
Quote – Last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its May Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, which showed inflation worsening. Yet the bigger story — and bigger worry — is not inflation. It’s the distinct possibility of recession. Or perhaps both (what’s termed “stagflation.”) Here are the questions I’m getting asked most often, and my answers.
Click through for questions and answers. Given that the “inflation” is mostly artificially induced by price gouging, those same parties will likely also be responsible for a recession or stagflation. But they’ll get away with it – again.

CPR – Supreme Court: Native Americans prosecuted in tribal courts can be tried by federal government for same offense
Quote – The case before the justices involves a tribal court system that has become increasingly rare over the last century. Courts of Indian Offenses were created in the late 1800s during a period when the federal government’s policy toward Native Americans was to encourage assimilation. Prosecutors are federal officers answerable to federal authorities, not tribal authorities. Federal policy toward Native Americans shifted in the mid-1930s, however, to emphasize a greater respect for tribes’ native ways. As part of that, the government has encouraged tribes to create their own tribal courts, and the number of Courts of Indian Offenses has steadily decreased.
Click through for story. There is a lot going on here – history, culture, definitions of sovereign nations, and more. I can certainly see why the case made it all the way to SCOTUS. Whether the decision is right, I’m not so sure.

Food For Thought

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