There's PFAS in the water

PFAS is an abbreviation of polyfluoroalkyl substances, which happen to be toxic chemicals that have been linked to cancer, liver dysfunction, fetal damage and other health problems. A recent test looked at tap water samples from 44 locations in 31 states and the District of Columbia ranging from large metropolitan areas to small towns. Guess what they saw? PFAS in 43 of these locations. And Trump's EPA is reducing its testing functions.

Working in Antarctica

A Blast from the Past

Part of the reason for the stock market jump

Ups and downs of gold

Acting like a kid

Last Friday, Mike Pompeo, our Secretary of State, went ape when an NPR correspondent asked him about Ukraine. Yesterday, he forbade another NPR correspondent, Michele Keleman, who has covered the State Department for nearly two decades, from flying on the government airplane in his upcoming trip to Europe and Central Asia, including Ukraine.

It's more than the coronavirus

WHO has issued two reports about future antibiotics. Here's what the Director-General says, “Never has the threat of antimicrobial resistance been more immediate and the need for solutions more urgent. Numerous initiatives are underway to reduce resistance, but we also need countries and the pharmaceutical industry to step up and contribute with sustainable funding and innovative new medicines.”

WHO studied 60 products in development and concluded that they bring little benefit over existing treatments and very few target the most critical resistant bacteria (Gram-negative bacteria). While some products show progress, it will take years before they reach patients.

Living and the coronavirus

The youngsters are not doing that well

Favoring the farmers and developers

Trump has decided that farmers, real estate developers and fossil fuel producers have been hurt by the government's laws relative to streams, wetlands and groundwater. So he's revoking or loosening them. Now, they will be allowed to dump pollutants such as pesticides and fertilizers directly into hundreds of thousands of waterways, and to destroy or fill in wetlands for construction projects.

Be careful of the water you drink and bathe in.

Coronavirus action

The Winners?

From the World Economic Forum

Monopolies and the Economy

Sam Long has an interesting article about how the rise of monopolies is destroying our economy. Much of the article is a review of Matt Stoller’s Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy.

Perhaps, the most interesting part of the article is the following:

For all of the bleating about innovation at business schools and elsewhere, American entrepreneurship is in a perilous state. Despite a ten-year bull market, annual small business formation is still at only two thirds of its pre-recession levels. Over a longer horizon the picture only grows bleaker. In the 1970s new firms (defined as those less than one year old) accounted for approximately 15 percent of all American businesses. Forty years later that percentage hovers in the mid-single digits. Our winner-take-all economy is creating fewer businesses and, as a result, inferior investment opportunities. Our business culture now seems purpose-built to celebrate founders and companies whose entire business model can be described as seeking monopoly, while avoiding mention of the collateral damage to other sectors of the economy.

We're still the wealthiest

GAO looks at state and local governments....

... and it doesn't look good. At least, the GAO's simulation doesn't. They 'simulated' revenues and expenditures for the next 50 years and concluded that revenues will not be sufficient to cover expenditures. The two major problems are health care costs and employee compensation.

Another deadly virus

The coronavirus, which causes a type of pneumonia, has come to China and has already effected more than 200, three of whom have died. Japan, Thailand and South Korea have reported cases.

The outbreak has revived memories of the Sars virus - also a coronavirus - that killed 774 people in the early 2000s across dozens of countries, mostly in Asia. Analysis of the genetic code of the new virus shows it is more closely related to Sars than any other human coronavirus.

GAO Looked at the Economic Status of Millennial Households

Here's what it found: 

Over the last 40 years, fewer Americans are making more than their parents did at the same age 

Predetermined factors like parental income, race, and geography play key roles in determining future earnings 

Millennials have significantly more student debt, lower levels of homeownership, and less net worth than previous generations 

Millennials are highly educated, but it’s not clear whether this will boost their income in the long run

I still think it's true that of us in the 70+ age bracket lived through America's best days.

Thoughts of a 97 year-old

Why haven't we done more for Puerto Rico?

Congress has approved $44 billion, but we've only spent about $8 billion. Yet, more than two years after Hurricane Maria, houses remain roofless, bridges are cracked and unstable, schools are closed, many roads are one lane.

Who is employed?

Wall Street on Parade has an interesting article about how the unemployment rate is calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You can be considered employed even you didn’t receive a dime in salary during the week the data is collected. Here's the BLS rationale:

People are considered employed if they did any work at all for pay or profit during the survey reference week. This includes all part-time and temporary work, as well as regular full-time, year-round employment. Individuals also are counted as employed if they have a job at which they did not work during the survey week, whether they were paid or not, because they were: on vacation; ill; experiencing child care problems; on maternity or paternity leave; taking care of some other family or personal obligation; involved in a labor dispute; prevented from working by bad weather.


And then there is a group called unpaid family workers, which includes any person who worked without pay for 15 hours or more per week in a business or farm operated by a family member with whom they live. 

They've already spent over a half billion

Ocean heatwaves

Most of the heatwaves we have experienced have been on land; there have been many fewer on the ocean. Scientists are wondering whether this pattern will continue, particularly since ocean heatwaves have doubled in frequency over the past few decades. Land heatwaves are much smaller in size, and they do not last as long. The scientists' concern was triggered by what they call "the blob". This was a heatwave triggered by El Nino. It lasted from 2103 to 2015 and resulted in killing a million birds the scientists think. It went from California to Alaska.

Not only did tons of birds die, the birds did not produce many chicks.

More of reality

When will we be dealing with something like this?

The end of an empire

Since the beginning of time, all empires around the world have eventually failed and at a faster clip. Our empire is 75 years old and, in my judgment failing. One example - In our first 200 years we impeached one president, Andrew Johnson in 1868. In the past forty-odd years, three presidents have been impeachable. What does this say about our leadership?

Brexit can be costly

I can't say that I have been a fan of Brexit but I never imagined that it would cost England more than its contribution to the EU since 1973. Bloomberg Economics says that "Brexit is likely to have cost the UK more than £200 billion in lost economic growth by the end of this year — a figure that almost eclipses the total amount the UK has paid (£215 billion) toward the European Union budget over the past 47 years." Plus, the numbers show that the UK's economic growth to lag behind that of other G7 countries since the 2016 vote.

JPMorgan sets a new quarterly record

For the quarter ending December 31, 2019 JP made $8.52 billion, which was the most it has ever earned in a quarter. Wall Street on Parade points out that in the same quarter JP and other Wall Street dealers received hundreds of billions of dollars in cheap "repo" loans from the NY Fed. The Fed began these loans on September 17, 2019. At that time the going interest rate for these loans was 10%. I guess the Fed thought this rate too high and decided to charge less than 2%. Did this help JP set its record?

Another negative economic sign

Shipment volume in the US by truck, rail, air, and barge plunged 7.9% in December 2019 compared to a year earlier, according to the Cass Freight Index for Shipments. It was the 13th month in a row of year-over-year declines, and the steepest year-over-year decline since November 2009, during the Financial Crisis.

You know it's getting warmer

Where the money is

An interesting club

His job is done

Courtesy of our Florida correspondent

Change is in the wind

In March of last year I wrote about a movement to get rid of the Electoral College - the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). The Compact is an agreement among a group of states and the District of Columbia to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

At that time twelve states and D.C. had signed on. Today it is fifteen states and D.C. Together, they have 196 electoral votes, which is 36.4% of the Electoral College and 72.6% of the 270 votes needed to give the compact legal force.

Maybe we will see a change.

An early Spring

On both Saturday and Sunday the temperature was close to 70. This is New England at the start of winter. Last year we had a 60-degree day in February near the end of winter. This year the temperature of near 70 lasted two days. Climate is clearly changing

Another indication of a weakening economy

Courtesy of Bloomberg

They're transplanting everything

Are our teachers underpaid?

Cancer on the decline

My friend Donald called

He's called every day since Wednesday. He is looking for money for his campaign. I suspect he calls me because the previous occupant of my apartment must have been a Republican.

Another call today, January 11.

Looking for a wife

Courtesy of our Florida correspondent

Do you have faith in the World Bank?

In its latest report it is far from optimistic. To wit:

“The global economy has experienced four waves of debt accumulation over the past fifty years. The first three ended with financial crises in many emerging market and developing economies. During the current wave, which started in 2010, the increase in debt in these economies has already been larger, faster, and more broad-based than in any of the previous three waves.”

And, global debt has reached “an all-time high of about 230 percent of global GDP in 2018.”

Then, it thinks that GDP growth will be pretty bad. It thinks that our GDP will grow at just 1.8 percent this year and a further drop to 1.7 percent in 2021 and 2022.

Changing city populations

Make your actions reflect your words

“U.S. tariffs continue to be almost entirely borne by U.S. firms and consumers,”

That's what Mary Amiti, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, wrote in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper. She and her co-authors found that “approximately 100 percent” of import taxes fell on American buyers and had little impact on China.

In their previous paper on the subject they found that by December 2018, import tariffs were costing United States consumers and importing businesses $3.2 billion per month in added taxes and another $1.4 billion per month in efficiency losses.

More Short Term Loans by the Fed

Less than a month ago the Fed announced a program to lend $2.9 trillion to Wall Street Dealers. This was a formalization of a major increase in repo (repurchase) loans that begin in early September. The program has resulted in a significant increase in the Fed's balance sheet. Assets are now above $4 trillion.

Why don't we care to vote?

Riding on the water

How do you think he'll turn out?

What is amber?

Day One

What is your day one? I look at my day one as the first day of my life that I can recall. And, for me, it was the same answer when I asked the question whether I was 20 or 80. 

My Day One is December 7, 1941. At about 7 p.m. I was on the dining room floor playing with some toys. My mother and sisters had cleaned up after supper. I’d be going to bed in an hour or so. It was a Sunday. The radio was on. And you know what the radio said.

So, what did I do for the next 3 years and 9 months? I learned to read, as the Boston Post and all other newspapers told the story of the war every day and I needed to know the story. I learned to write, as my mother saw to it that I regularly sent letters to my brothers, one in Europe (and the Battle of the Bulge) and one (luckily) in New Zealand. 

But, there are a lot more memories: 

Going to the store with my sisters holding the ration book 

Looking at windows and seeing a symbol (Gold Star Mother) that one of the sons who lived in the house had been killed in battle 

My sisters knitting things for the soldiers 

My saving ??? for the good of the country (I wish I could remember what ??? was)

Experiencing air raid drills 

Knowing my father was a member of the Draft Board

Playing war games with my friends

Listening to Fulton J. Sheen 

Helping assemble several huge packages of food and clothing for my father’s family in Italy (after Italy had dropped out of the war) 

Hearing the names of Conscientious Objectors