“Inflation continued burning a hole in Americans’ wallets last month.
Prices rose by an average of 0.4 percent overall, driven primarily by rising costs for housing, food, and medical care. According to the newly released data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices rose by 8.2 percent overall during the last 12 months ending in September. Food prices have climbed by 11.2 percent in the past year, while energy prices are up by a whopping 19.7 percent despite falling by about 2 percent in September.”
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“Particularly worrying is that so-called core CPI, which filters out more volatile categories like food and energy prices, rose by 0.6 percent last month. In other words, inflation is widespread throughout the economy and no longer contained to the categories that were driving the phenomenon a year ago. Far from being transitory, inflation now seems to be a deeply rooted problem.”
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“rising interest rates needed to combat inflation will rebound onto the federal balance sheet by making the federal debt more expensive. Even when interest rates were at or near historical lows, interest payments on the national debt were on course to become one of the largest segments of the federal budget within the coming decade. Higher interest rates mean the government will have to spend a significantly larger amount of revenue on simply managing the existing debt—a nasty feedback loop that makes the government’s already untenable fiscal situation considerably worse.”
“Loan forgiveness may encourage reckless borrowing, if today’s college students think they won’t actually have to pay back their loans. And this, in turn, could lead to even higher college tuition rates. It could also be inflationary more generally, by freeing up income for tons of people who may then drive up demand for goods and, along with it, prices.”
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“The program amounts to a massive subsidy for middle-class Americans, as opposed to benefiting the most economically downtrodden or financially strapped. It provides a handout to many people for whom loan payments aren’t a problem now (someone making $125,000 per year can surely afford a few hundred dollars per month) or won’t be in the very near future (for instance, a doctor or lawyer on the verge of making big bucks who hasn’t quite gotten there yet). In short, the program “consumes resources that could be better used helping those who did not, for whatever reason, have a chance to attend college,” as economist Larry Summers put it on Twitter”
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“Certainly not everyone who had to take out student loans was lazy, irresponsible, or anything of the sort. And not everyone without student loan debt is responsible or hard-working; many just lucked into having parents who could afford to pay for college. But there are many people for whom avoiding student loan debt or paying it off promptly meant making all sorts of sacrifices. Biden’s loan forgiveness program says to them that this thrift, practicality, etc. may have been for nought.”
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“to simply write off existing student loan debt without addressing the source of the fast rise in college prices —which has a lot to do with the federal student loan program existing—is only ensuring ongoing problems.”
“tariffs of all kinds are regressive taxes that hike costs for consumers and make it particularly difficult for poorer households to afford basic goods.
Eliminating many tariffs that serve little purpose “would ease financial burdens in a small but real way for American low-income and minority workers and their families, helping to raise their living standards without intensifying competitive pressure””
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“Trump’s tariffs have contributed to inflation and helped to artificially inflate the cost of everything from appliances to housing. About two-thirds of all imports from China are now subject to tariffs when they enter the United States, with the average tariff being 19.3 percent. That’s six times higher than the average tariff on Chinese-made imports before Trump’s haphazard trade war began. That’s certainly not helping poorer Americans improve their standard of living.
But, as Gresser points out, other aspects of the U.S. tariff code are also to blame for imposing regressive taxes on poorer Americans. Under the “Most Favored Nation” (MFN) system of tariffs that are applied to imports from countries with which the U.S. does not have a specific trade deal, many common consumer goods are subject to higher tariffs than their luxury alternatives. Stainless steel spoons are tariffed at a much higher rate than far more expensive sterling silver spoons, for example, and cheap sneakers are charged a tariff more than five times higher than leather dress shoes.”
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“For months, we’ve been treated to headlines promising that the Biden administration is considering lifting Trump’s tariffs. In June, administration officials told The New York Times that lifting tariffs might reduce inflation by a quarter of a percentage point—even though independent studies suggested the effect could be greater. Yet nothing was done, even after Biden promised that corralling inflation was his “top domestic priority.””
“Russian forces have apparently obtained scores of the cheap, plentiful and potentially deadly Iranian-made drones. Like the Nazis in the Second World War, the Russians may hope these new weapons could turn the tide of the war in Russia’s favour.
Made by the Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industries Company, the Shahed-136 entered service last year. With a range of up to 1,500 miles and carrying a warhead of 35 kilograms, the drones are designed to loiter overhead before striking targets. Ukrainian forces say they come in both Kamikaze and munition-launching variants.
Constructed from commercially available components – including mobile phone parts and model aircraft engines – the drones are easy and cheap to build with a supply chain that is difficult to disrupt with Western sanctions.
Their deployment comes amid signs that Russia is running out of other precision weapons. Last week, Sir Jeremy Fleming, the head of GCHQ, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We believe that Russia is running short of munitions.”
The waves of drone strikes are a rudimentary new form of terror, compared with the precision Kalibr cruise missiles which have been used to strike targets deep inside Ukraine.
The drones are estimated to cost less than £18,000 per unit. That’s a fraction of the cost of conventional Russian missiles, which range from about £270,000 for a Tochka-U up to £11.6 million for a x-101 cruise missile.
The relatively low speed of the Shahed-136 – just over 100 miles per hour – make them a tempting if difficult target for Ukrainian small arms fire. Soldiers in the Kharkiv region recently told The Telegraph that the drones are slow and visible enough to engage with small arms fire and that they had downed at least one using ordinary machine guns.
But their lack of defences is not a design flaw. The disposable drone is designed to be launched in swarms to overwhelm air defences. The drone is fired from launcher racks in stacks of five aircraft that take off with a booster rocket before switching to a petrol engine.
This, plus the size of their payload, means the drones pose a serious threat, Ukrainian commanders say.”
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“Tehran has carefully couched its denials about the Shahed-136, repeatedly rejecting accusations it has supplied Russia with weapons “to be used in the war in Ukraine”. But security officials told the Washington Post that Iranian technical advisors have visited Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine to provide training on operating the drones.”
“Speaking of Fukushima, according to the Financial Times, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has announced that the government plans to allow the restart of at least 10 more of the nuclear power plants it shuttered after the 2011 disaster. In addition, Kishida is pushing for research on and the construction of new safer nuclear plants as a way to protect Japanese consumers from erratic global fossil fuel markets and reduce his country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Kishida foresees Japan becoming a major exporter of nuclear generation technology to power hungry developing countries around the world.”
https://reason.com/2022/08/25/japan-is-reopening-nuclear-power-plants-and-planning-to-build-new-ones/
“as survey data from the government-sponsored Monitoring the Future (MTF) study confirm, the surge in electronic cigarette use by teenagers that alarmed the FDA in 2018 and 2019 is already receding, even though adults can still buy flavored ENDS that remain on the market because the FDA has not yet decided whether to allow them or has not taken enforcement action against them. Those data also indicate that adolescent smoking continued to decline as vaping became more popular. The picture is similar for young adults: As vaping continued to rise among 19-to-30-year-olds in 2021, cigarette smoking hit a record low.
These trends suggest that we are seeing precisely the sort of harm-reducing substitution that the FDA claims to want. The data certainly are not consistent with the idea that the availability of ENDS has resulted in more smoking. Yet Judge Rosenbaum, who seems to think the FDA’s opposition to flavored ENDS is well-grounded, avers that “vaping has been shown to be a gateway to smoking combustible cigarettes.” She cites no evidence to support that claim, which seems highly implausible in light of the continuing decline in smoking among teenagers and adults.”
“”Federal law is clear: patients have the right to stabilizing hospital emergency room care no matter where they live,” said Department of Health and Human Services (DHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra. “Women should not have to be near death to get care.”
In July, HHS issued new guidance stating that EMTALA’s provision for stabilizing treatment includes a right to an abortion in some circumstances. “If a state law prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the health or life of the pregnant person—or draws the exception more narrowly than EMTALA’s emergency medical condition definition—that state law is preempted,” the agency said.
No existing abortion ban lacks an exception for a mother’s life, but some do omit exceptions for women’s health. And determining whether something counts as a life-threatening emergency—as opposed to a mere health-threatening emergency—isn’t so clear-cut. Many pregnancy complications could become life-threatening while not being necessarily or immediately so. The HHS guidance attempts to provide clarity, stating that regardless of what a state law says, physicians must provide an abortion if one is necessary to address an emergency medical condition (including, but not limited to, ectopic pregnancy or severely high blood pressure).
Texas sued over the HHS directive. Joined by the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) and the Christian Medical and Dental Association (CMDA), the state sought to have the HHS “abortion mandate” declared “unlawful, unconstitutional and unenforceable” and for the court to issue a preliminary injunction on its enforcement.”
“The federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program, which effectively paid businesses to keep workers on their payroll even if they temporarily closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, was a mess.
After quickly burning through its initial allocation of $349 billion, the Paycheck Protection Program was reauthorized a few times and ended up costing more than $820 billion, making it one of the largest components of the federal government’s humongous COVID relief effort. Despite being lauded by both Democrats and Republicans, independent analysis found that the program was a hugely expensive failure. Only about one-third of the program’s money actually went to workers who would have otherwise lost their jobs, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research study. Another study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that taxpayers paid roughly $4 for every $1 of wages and benefits to workers.”
“California policy makers are seemingly getting serious about solving the state’s housing crisis by passing a bevy of laws that ease restrictions on new development. But the benefits of this deregulation are often undone by environmental lawsuits, and there’s evidence that the problem is getting worse.
In 2020, almost 48,000 new housing units were targeted with lawsuits, according to a new report from the law firm Holland & Knight. That’s roughly 50 percent of the 110,784 annual housing units the state has built on average over the past six years.
Two-thirds of these anti-housing lawsuits filed under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) allege that new residential development violates state targets on reducing greenhouse gases and vehicle miles traveled.
“CEQA has indeed become a population control (aka reduction) statute,” writes the report’s author Jennifer Hernandez. “California is losing people, and the people being expelled are our families, our kids and grandkids, our favorite young teacher, our most compassionate nurse, our lifeline electricians and carpenters, our first responders, and our future caregivers.”
CEQA, passed in 1970, requires that governments study and mitigate the environmental impacts of new developments they have discretion over. The law also gives third parties the ability to sue governments for approving projects without allegedly studying them enough or requiring sufficient mitigation of their environmental effects.
That setup has made the law a go-to tool for anti-development Not in my Backyard (NIMBY) activists, who can hold up new projects for years with (often very flimsy) CEQA lawsuits. Despite its original purpose of protecting the environment, CEQA enables reams of litigations targeting everything from new apartments to new solar panels.”
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“The report notes that the impact of CEQA lawsuits on new housing is probably greater than the mere 47,999 that have been explicitly challenged. These legal challenges also target upzoning measures that would allow developers to propose more housing.
That’s helped to keep California’s housing production numbers flat over the past few years, despite the passage of nearly 80 laws aimed at boosting housing production or bringing housing costs down.”