Political Cartoon is by Gary Huck at huckkonopackicartoons.com.
Saturday, January 02, 2021
Economist Predicts Economic Boom After Virus Controlled
Fortunately, he will be gone in less than three weeks, and we will have a new president -- one that will act to control the virus and protect citizens.
And when that happens, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman (pictured) is predicting the economy will enter a booming recovery that will last for a significant period.
Here is part of what Krugman wrote in The New York Times:
Science has come to our rescue, big time, with the miraculously fast development of vaccines against the coronavirus. True, the United States is botching the initial rollout, which should surprise nobody. But this is probably just a temporary hitch, especially because in less than three weeks we’ll have a president actually interested in doing his job.
And once we’ve achieved widespread vaccination, the economy will bounce back. The question is, how big will the bounce be?
Our last economic crisis was followed by a sluggish recovery. Employment didn’t return to 2007 levels until 2014; real median household income didn’t regain the lost ground until 2016. And many observers expect a replay of that story, especially if Republicans retain control of the Senate and engage, once again, in economic sabotage under the pretense of being fiscally responsible.
But the crisis of 2020 was very different from the crisis of 2008, in ways that make our prospects look much better this time around.
The last economic crisis involved a Wile E. Coyote moment: The private sector suddenly looked down, realized that there was nothing supporting extravagant housing prices and extremely high levels of household debt, and plunged. The result was an extended period of depressed spending. The only way to have avoided multiple years of high unemployment would have been sustained, large-scale fiscal stimulus — and the G.O.P. prevented that.
This 2020 crisis, by contrast, was brought on by a headwind out of nowhere, in the form of the coronavirus. The private sector doesn’t seem to have been particularly overextended before the pandemic. And while we shouldn’t minimize the hardships faced by millions of families, on average Americans have been saving like crazy, and will emerge from the pandemic with stronger balance sheets than they had before.
So I’m in the camp that expects rapid growth once people feel safe going out and spending money. Mitch McConnell and company will, no doubt, do what they always do when a Democrat occupies the White House, and try to sabotage the recovery. But this time the economy won’t need support as badly as it did during the Obama years.
And I suspect, although with less confidence, that the boom will go on for a long time. Why? Because like a number of other people, I’m getting optimistic about the future of technology. . . .
I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz around new physical technologies that reminds me of the buzz about information technology in the early 1990s, which presaged the productivity surge from 1995 to 2005. Biotechnology finally seems to be coming into its own — hence those miraculous vaccines. There has been incredible progress in renewable energy; I’m old enough to remember when solar power was considered a hippie fantasy, and now it’s cheaper than fossil fuels. There’s room for more skepticism about the near-term prospects for things like self-driving vehicles and lab-grown meat, but the fact that we’re even talking about such innovations is a good sign for the future.
This new wave of innovation doesn’t have much to do with policy, although progress in renewables can be partly attributed to the Obama administration’s promotion of green energy. But the Biden administration, unlike its predecessor, won’t be anti-science and won’t try desperately to preserve the coal-burning past. That will help us take advantage of progress.
I’m less confident in my techno-optimism than I am in my expectations for a rapid employment recovery once we’ve been vaccinated. But all in all, there’s a pretty good chance that Joe Biden will preside over an economy that surprises many people on the upside. Happy New Year.
Friday, January 01, 2021
Happy New Year
I wish all my readers a very happy new year! May 2021 bring you only good things, and may you be healthy, financially secure, and accomplish the goals you seek. And may it bring peace and love to our troubled world.
Americans Are Hopeful That 2021 Will Be Better
The charts above reflect the results of a recent Axios / SurveyMonkey Poll -- done between December 14th and 20th of a national sample of 3,561 adults.
Americans are hopeful that 2021 will be a better year -- for themselves, for the world, and for the incoming president. They are also hopeful regarding the pandemic.
787,000 More Workers Filed For Unemployment Last Week
The Labor Department released its statistics for the week ending on December 26th. It showed another 787,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits last week. Before the Trump/Pandemic recession, the number filing each week was significantly less than 300,000. Since March, the numbers have been over 700,000 -- and most weeks well over that number.
Here is the official Labor Department statement:
In the week ending December 26, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 787,000, a decrease of 19,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 3,000 from 803,000 to 806,000. The 4-week moving average was 836,750, an increase of 17,750 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 750 from 818,250 to 819,000.
The GOP Representatives That Do NOT Believe In Democracy
But the meeting in 2021 is going to be different. That's because a couple of dozen House members will challenge the electoral college results. They want the votes from one or more states to be thrown out, and Trump to be declared the winner. They claim, with absolutely no proof, that those state results were the result of fraudulent voting.
The votes in those states (and indeed all states) have been certified, and those states have said there is no evidence of fraudulent voting. The Attorney General (Barr) announced that no evidence of fraud existed.
In other words, those representatives are trying to overthrow the legitimate results of a free and fair election. They do NOT believe in democracy! They want the power to install their own leader in opposition to how a majority of American citizens voted.
Here, from The Hill, are the 24 GOP representatives who have announced their intention to oppose democracy:
Rep. Brian Babin (Texas)
Rep. Andy Biggs (Ariz.)
Rep.-elect Lauren Boebert (Colo.)
Rep. Mo Brooks (Ala.)
Rep. Ted Budd (N.C.)
Rep.-elect Jerry Carl (Ala.)
Rep.-elect Madison Cawthorn (N.C.)
Rep.-elect Andrew Clyde (Ga.)
Rep. Jeff Duncan (S.C.)
Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.)
Rep. Louie Gohmert (Texas)
Rep.-elect Bob Good (Va.)
Rep. Lance Gooden (Texas)
Rep. Paul Gosar (Ariz.)
Rep. Mark Green (Tenn.)
Rep.-elect Yvette Herrell (N.M.)
Rep. Jody Hice (Ga.)
Rep.-elect Ronny Jackson (Texas)
Rep.-elect Barry Moore (Ala.)
Rep. Ralph Norman (S.C.)
Rep.-elect Burgess Owens (Utah)
Rep. Scott Perry (Pa.)
Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.)
Rep. Jefferson Van Drew (N.J.)
Trump Likely Will NOT Be Able To Change Census Rules
Donald Trump wanted to change the rules. Instead of counting every person living in the United States (as has always been done in the past), Trump issued an order that only citizens should be counted to determine each state's representation in Congress.
This would have substantially changed how some states were represented -- those state with a large undocumented immigrant population.
Trump's order was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court refused to rule on the matter, saying the change had not happened, and might not happen (depending on when the census numbers were reported to the president).
It looks like the court might have foreseen the case was moot. Now the Census Bureau is saying they cannot report the numbers by the end of the year (2020). Instead, they will probably report those numbers by the end of January 2021. That means the numbers would be reported to President Joe Biden -- not Trump.
Joe Biden will then be the one to report the census numbers, and he will report all people -- not just citizens.
It will be the final failure (among many) for the Trump administration.
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