Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Not the rainy day your mother had in mind: Janet Yellen whips out her tin ear for politics, suggests you use your savings to weather inflation


Emmanuel Macron's plans for tax cuts, welfare reform, and raising the retirement age thwarted by resurgent right under LePen and left under Mélenchon in France

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday, June 19, lost his absolute majority after major election gains by a newly formed left-wing alliance and a historic breakthrough for the far right, in a stunning blow to his hopes of major reform in his second term.

The run-off election was decisive for Mr. Macron's second-term agenda following his re-election in April, with the 44-year-old needing a majority to secure promised tax cuts and welfare reform and raise the retirement age. ...

The expected number of seats for Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National (90) amounts to a historic breakthrough. Only once under the Fifth Republic had the far right passed the threshold to form a group in the Assemblée (15 MPs), which allows for certain parliamentary resources and prerogatives.

More here at LeMonde.

Monday, June 20, 2022

This story blames climate change for homeless deaths, never once mentions the families who abandon them and the role played by drug abuse in their homelessness

 Sweltering streets: Hundreds of homeless die in extreme heat

 
One family, which presumably lived in a home where they presumably wrote the obituary and where the woman could have stayed temporarily, blames "the system" for the death of their homeless sister:
 

When a 62-year-old mentally ill woman named Shawna Wright died last summer in a hot alley in Salt Lake City, her death only became known when her family published an obituary saying the system failed to protect her during the hottest July on record, when temperatures reached the triple digits.

Her sister, Tricia Wright, said making it easier for homeless people to get permanent housing would go a long way toward protecting them from extreme summertime temperatures.

“We always thought she was tough, that she could get through it,” Tricia Wright said of her sister. “But no one is tough enough for that kind of heat.”

 


Housing market conditions update, now vs. then

 Housing market conditions, now vs. then:


Average borrower FICO score today: 751
In 2010: 699

Underwater today: virtually none (2.5% with less than 10% equity)
In 2011: more than 1 in 4 underwater (25% plus)

Today: 2.5 million ARMs (8% of mortgages)
In 2007: 13.1 million ARMs (36% of mortgages)

Facing resets today: 1.4 million ARMs (56%)
In 2007: 10 million (76%)

 
Housing remains as unaffordable as ever. The cost of the median new one is up a whopping 45% in April 2022 vs. April 2020, to $450,600. 

Germany's Economy Minister Robert Habeck of its Green Party says Germany will fire up the coal plants to produce electricity and conserve natural gas for winter heating as Russia reduces gas shipments

 Reality trumps ideology.

Friday, June 17, 2022

Liberal fact-checkers Snopes and now USA Today demonstrate that they have a growing problem with plagiarism and outright fabrication


Happy 50th Anniversary of Watergate

 


What rot from AP Obama: "Watergate and Jan. 6 are rooted in the same ancient thirst for power at any cost"

 "Two presidents tried an end run around democracy."

Give me a break.

Presidents are term-limited by the constitution. Even if by hook or by crook one of them managed to steal his reelection, out he goes after that because it says so. Everyone agrees with this. No one questions it. No president would get away with staying in office one day longer than the second term permits.

If you want to see the ancient thirst for power, look at the Seniority list for the US House. 

Some of those placeholders have been holding on to power there for decades.

Seven go back to the 1980s.

Thirty-eight go back to the 1990s.

Sixty-eight go back to the 2000s.

They've watched presidents come and go since Reagan, Bush 41, and Clinton.

Of the top fifty by seniority, just eleven are Republicans.

Of the top 113, just thirty-eight are Republicans.

75 remaining senior Democrats are the foundation in the House of the people pressing their power hungry vendetta against the private citizen, Donald Trump. They are also the foundation in the House of the people robbing Americans blind and putting the country $30 trillion in debt.

What we have is a tyranny of the legislative. An imperial presidency isn't even in sight.

The only coup in view is the cuckoo who wrote this story.

In an election year, the votes of the bottom 90% count a lot more than the campaign contributions of the rich, who own 89% of the stonks

 Lucky for you inflation is raging in an election year, otherwise they'd pretend to take this seriously even less than they are.

US COVID-19 deaths per day in June 2022 to date have flatlined: As good as it gets?


June 2022 (15th): 372
 
May 2022: 373
Apr 2022:  426
Mar 2022:  980
Feb 2022:  2247
Jan 2022:   1987