Tag Archives: recession

The economy Trump inherits

“For a three-year stretch from 1983 to 1985 during the heart of the Reagan boom, growth in the U.S. economy averaged over 5.5% per year. These two periods were unusually strong, but they show what the U.S. economy can do with the right policies. By contrast, growth in the U.S. from 2007 through 2013 averaged 1% per year. Growth in the first half of 2014 was worse, averaging just 0.95%.”

Sleepwalking into calamity

After the last State of the Union address by our Nobel Peace Laureate, bromide/memes like the above circulated freely on the Internets. This one was at least smart enough to leave lower gas prices off the list. You probably shouldn’t draw people’s attention to the fact that oil prices have fallen off a cliff because […]

Worst stock market opening ever

I want to capture this moment, because (depending how things change), people might not have this on their radar screen a month or so from now. Remember, I warned you. The Stock Exchange lost over 5% of its value in the first week after New Year’s, and lost over 900 points. That makes this the […]

Economic storm on the horizon

The basics: the Fed has announced a rate hike (the first since the Lehman crash in 2008) and the Dow is wobbling. Today (Friday) the Dow was down almost 370. While Wall Street has ample selfish reasons to wish for permanently ‘free’ money from the Treasury, the reality is that Janet Yellen’s actions are (to […]

Not to root for Bernie…

The Democrats’ debate in Vegas on Tuesday was an interesting piece of TV. I’ve made my own feelings about the race known here. I’m energized by the presence of Bernie Sanders in the race, primarily because he’s saying things that no one else will say.  And not to get too excited, but Bernie apparently won […]

Unemployment drags on

A pair of articles recently in the Huffington Post about unemployment. The first was about Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve, and its prediction that unemployment will stay above 6.5% for the next two years at least. The Fed thus sees no good reason to raise interest rates. Parenthetically, the lousy returns on savings and CD’s are […]

Peak Oil! Spectra, Dumpster Diving and seven year old predictions!!

In yesterday’s post I made some arguments about the resource arguments for veganism and changing the ways that we produce and use food. In the course of producing yesterday’s post on Dumpster Diving, I had revisited a number of different websites and documentaries to find support for the arguments for the practice of taking people’s wasted food. […]