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The challenge with death ... Even in regular years death statistics are challenging. Coroners do their...
What is anti-Semitism? Anti-Semitism has many forms. Some are blatant, others subtle. Defining an...
Sources? I’ve been asked how I came to the understanding of the Bible that I...
Alarming Nonsense about C... Is Coronavirus Contagious? – Nourishing Traditions Sorry, but I find...
More thoughts on Holocaus... Question everything… but then listen to the answers. Recently...
Soccer in Waldorf Schools I’ve looked, and Steiner does not say anything about soccer in the...
Steiner and Treitschke Last week someone e-mailed me a post that Peter Staudenmaier wrote to the...
Don’t Expect Politi... As long as districts remain gerrymandered, the best bet for any House Democrat...

Why Should Ordinary People Care about the Stock Ma...

Whenever the stock market rises, the press cheers like that is a good thing. But increasingly people are wondering why. Something has changed. Indeed, a lot of the rules around how we are supposed to think about things have changed in the past 20 years. It used to be that when companies made a lot of money they went out and built new factories and hired a lot of new people. And when that was true, it made sense to cheer when...

Facts and Reality

The headline: “Americans increasingly disagree about basic facts”. So basically… for each disputed fact, one side is wrong. Or are we re-defining the word “fact”? And if one side is wrong for each of these facts, shouldn’t the headline read, “Americans increasingly out of touch with reality”?

Wages and Gender

The headline reads: “Why Are Women Still Choosing the Lowest-Paying Jobs?” But that is really just framing the questions wrong. Maybe we should instead be asking how it is that those jobs that women have historically gravitated towards somehow ended up becoming fields that are relatively underpaid. The question of what any given job “should” make is a very interesting one, both on the low end and on...

GOP Tax Plan XII: Election Gaming

Another feature of the tax bill – election gaming. The bill features a highly unusual 1-year loophole in 2018 for businesses to buy stuff. And they will, driving the economy crazy. It will then bust in 2019, because businesses will have bought several years worth of stuff in 2018, this will make 2019 a bust year. Since the single greatest predictor of electoral success (or failure) is the state of the economy –...

GOP Tax Plan XI: Loopholes

Wow, the loopholes in this new tax bill are just amazing! No rich person with half a brain and a decent tax accountant is going to pay more than 20% hereafter. The nominal 37.5% top individual rate is a joke; no truly high net worth individual will end up paying it. Meanwhile on the right they are cheering the changes and promising how this will really improve things for the average worker. Unfortunately the very last thing...

GOP Tax Plan X: Elite Favoritism

The economy is exactly what the elites want it to be. And post the GOP tax bill it will be even more of that. Elites will get an even larger slice of the pie, asset prices will further inflate as even more money chases existing real estate, stocks, and other investable assets. And the middle class – well things continue to get worse, as all the supports go underfunded and none of the abuses or upwards redistribution...

The VA and Privatization

Shulkin says he’s considering closing 1,100 VA facilities Yay, more privatization! Close 1,100 centers that are totally free to vets and give them all vouchers they can use to try to buy overpriced health care from the rapacious for-profit sector. Everybody wins! Well, except vets who will see their quality of care decrease and the value of their vouchers slowly buy less care over time. But the private sector will do...

Our Surreal Times

Trump: “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, has been a total disaster… Financial Institutions have been devastated and unable to properly serve the public.” The only thing more disturbing than a “populist” president siding with Wall Street (during an unprecedented boom in the financial sector) is the MAGA crowd rushing to explain why the same group of companies that have been...