Former PM Shinzo Abe was shot and killed in Japan, where handguns are banned.
Friday, July 8, 2022
Thursday, July 7, 2022
Famous last words: Recession "not expected"
- The economy is expected to have added 250,000 jobs in June, a strong number though lower than the 390,000 in May, according to economists surveyed by Dow Jones.
Boris Johnson done-in by testicles not his own
Johnson
was ultimately undone by his response to fallout from the resignation
last Thursday of deputy chief whip Chris Pincher, amid allegations
Pincher had groped two guests at a private dinner the night before.
While he did not admit the allegations directly, Pincher said in a
letter to Johnson last week that "last night I drank far too much" and
"embarrassed myself and other people." Other historical allegations of
misconduct by Pincher emerged in the ensuing days.
Johnson
initially denied being aware of some of those allegations, but
ultimately the Prime Minister was forced to admit he had been briefed
years before and apologize for his decision-making.
It
was the final straw for many political allies who had supported Johnson
through crisis after crisis over the years. In recent months the Prime
Minister had been facing a barrage of criticism from all sides over his
conduct and that of his government, including illegal, lockdown-breaking
parties thrown in his Downing Street offices, for which he and others
were fined.
More.
Wednesday, July 6, 2022
This is as good a day as any to remember that Ben Bernanke's Fed under Obama bailed out the banksters and hung 6.5 million homeowners out to dry
Bloomberg, August 21, 2011, here:
Fed
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s unprecedented effort to keep the economy
from plunging into depression included lending banks and other companies
as much as $1.2 trillion of public money, about the same amount U.S.
homeowners currently owe on 6.5 million delinquent and foreclosed
mortgages. The largest borrower, Morgan Stanley, got as much as $107.3
billion, while Citigroup took $99.5 billion and Bank of America $91.4
billion, according to a Bloomberg News compilation of data obtained
through Freedom of Information Act requests, months of litigation and an
act of Congress. ...
Homeowners
are more than 30 days past due on their mortgage payments on 4.38
million properties in the U.S., and 2.16 million more properties are in
foreclosure, representing a combined $1.27 trillion of unpaid principal,
estimates Jacksonville, Florida-based Lender Processing Services Inc. ...
Congress required the disclosure after the Fed rejected requests in 2008
from the late Bloomberg News reporter Mark Pittman and other media
companies that sought details of its loans under the Freedom of
Information Act. After fighting to keep the data secret, the central
bank released unprecedented information about its discount window and
other programs under court order in March 2011.
Legalize mental and mental will trickle down
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a bill into law in June 2019 legalizing the recreational use of cannabis by adults, including retail sales beginning on Jan. 1, 2020. The following article covers Illinois' current cannabis laws with summaries of provisions under these laws.
More.
Tuesday, July 5, 2022
Damn fool Biden administration releases crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to reduce fuel prices, 5 million barrels get exported abroad last month, including to China
More than 5 million barrels of oil that were part of a historic U.S. emergency reserves release to lower domestic fuel prices were exported to Europe and Asia last month . . ..
Inflation hits new record in Europe, Reuters begins to tell the truth about why
But they save it for the last paragraph, which probably no one reads.
At minus 0.5%, the ECB's deposit rate has been in negative territory since 2014.
The contemplated interest rate hikes are laughably small, and laughably timed for later.
"The house is on fire and we'll get around to sending out a crew next week".
Monday, July 4, 2022
All it took was Russia invading Ukraine for countries to junk the Paris climate agreement and begin a desperate frenzy for coal
Coal Makes Comeback as World Thirsts for Energy...
Countries
are rejiggering distribution channels to obtain more coal from other
big suppliers such as Australia and the U.S., but that takes time and
money, said Gerben Hieminga, senior energy-sector economist for Dutch
bank ING Groep.
“The whole world is doing this,” Mr. Hieminga said.
Saturday, July 2, 2022
Climate Update for KGRR: 2Q2022
Climate Update for KGRR: 2Q2022
Spring was just 1.2% warmer than the mean by average temperature, on the strength of slightly higher highs and higher lows, and only 3% wetter than usual.
Average Temperature: 58.1
Mean Average Temperature: 57.4
Rain: 10.68
Mean Rain: 10.37
Snow (official season end +6.6%): 71
Mean: 66.6
Heating Degree Days (official season end -6.2%): 6282
Mean: 6694
Cooling Degree Days through June: 250
Mean: 184
Maximum temperatures vs. mean in 2Q
Apr: 82/79
May: 87/86
Jun: 95/91
Minimum temperatures vs. mean in 2Q
Apr: 23/22
May: 36/32
Jun: 45/43
US COVID-19: The Big Picture through June 2022
Deaths per day in 2022 through June are now down to 1,050 as June has flatlined relative to May with 363 deaths per day vs. 373.
But contrast those admittedly welcome figures with influenza deaths per day 2010-2020 at about 93 on average and even at this much improved level COVID deaths are still ~4x higher.
Trying to learn anything from the case data is increasingly difficult due to increased self-testing at home, but it looks clear that cases are up again as Omicron sub variants mutate to be more spreadable.
Total cases monthly in 2022:
Jan 20.3 million
Feb 3.95m
Mar 1.07m
Apr 1.25m
May 2.89m
Jun 3.33m.
It makes sense that deaths are at their lowest in 2022 in May and June with cases at their lowest in March and April since deaths are a lagging indicator. The case increases in May and June portend higher death figures come July and August.
We averaged 1.68 million cases monthly in 2020, and 2.88 million monthly in 2021. Monthly cases in 1H2022 average 5.46 million.
US COVID-19 deaths per day in 2022 through June
June 2022: 363
May 2022: 373
Apr 2022: 426
Mar 2022: 980
Feb 2022: 2,247
Jan 2022: 1,987
Friday, July 1, 2022
A "political" Supreme Court which is "balanced" is wishy washy precisely because it is a function of an Executive branch hamstrung by the 22nd Amendment
This never occurs to Hugo for some reason.
A Court system which depends on the transient figure of the president for its existence can hardly be anything but political. That's where the fetish for political balance on the Court comes from. It is simply an extension of the overweening impulse to limit the Executive power. And it's not a coincidence that the loudest voices for it come from the Legislative. It's an expression of their tyranny over everything.
Of course the Supreme Court is a political institution.
It is appointed by an elected president, and confirmed by an elected Senate. But it is the two term limit which sharpens its tip, raising the stakes over every appointment.
The Court has become more political precisely because the political power of the Executive which appoints it has been limited. It's how the wronged Executive manages to live on, long after he has been forced from the scene. He routinely runs for office partly on the promise to partisans that he will make the right appointments to the bench.
If the Framers had intended the Executive to be hamstrung in this way while the other two branches were not, they would have said so.
The people have the right to elect whomever to the presidency as often as they wish, just as they have the right to return Nancy Pelosi to the US House year after year. They also have the right to get rid of the bum if they don't like his appointments. Anything less gives too much power to the likes of Nancy Pelosi, and to the judges he leaves behind.
The way to improve constancy of meaning on the Court and consistency in the rule of law is to improve both in the Executive.
We aren't going to be saved by a Court which has temporarily recovered its senses. They could just as well lose them again. And they'll also still be there, long after the president who appointed them is gone.
Who checks the Court?
Thursday, June 30, 2022
The New York Times says "places with higher vaccination rates have suffered many fewer Covid deaths", but those places are also much less densely populated
The New York Times, David "masks work and mandates often don't" Leonhardt, May 31, 2022, here:
After
all, the effect of vaccines on severe illness is blazingly obvious in
the geographic data: Places with higher vaccination rates have suffered many fewer Covid deaths.
The patterns are clear even though the world is a messy place, with
many factors other than vaccines influencing Covid death rates.
This is correct, as far as it goes.
The 21 US states in the lower 48 with the lowest daily new deaths per 100,000 of population to date have a vax rate averaging north of 69%. The 21 with the highest daily new deaths per 100k to date have a vax rate averaging not quite 62%.
The death rate to date in those more vaxxed states averages more than 36% lower per 100k of population, 0.28 vs. 0.44/100k.
But is that caused by the almost 12% higher vaccination rate?
What if it's something else?
Population per square mile in those higher vaxxed states with the lowest death rates averages 24% less dense than in the ones suffering the highest death rates, 185 vs. 243/sq.mi. Those states enjoy, for whatever reasons, a pre-existing condition of "social distance" which the highest death rate states do not.
I say 24% trumps 12% in the debate over cause.
"Many factors other than vaccines", or masks, mask mandates, or mask compliance rates, influence "Covid death rates".
The Fed has raised the Fed Funds interest rate to 1.58% and the celebrity investors are squealing like stuck pigs, too
Paul Volcker was Fed Chair from 1979 to 1987.
His peak average Fed Funds Rate was north of 16% in 1981.
Wednesday, June 29, 2022
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