Politics Plus

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.

Cartoon –

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