Thursday, July 23, 2026

Valentine’s Day: The Pressures of Shopping for Romance

The pernicious effects of the Hallmarking of holidays. Valentine’s Day happiness comes from spending time sharing pleasant experiences, rather than spending money on the perfect gift.

Commodities Price Increases and Prospect of Shortages Feeding Inflation Fears

Many commodities, particularly metals and energy, are in short supply, which points to even higher prices.

On-Time Rent Payments Sag Amid Massive Spike in Rents

Rents are up a lot in most places in the US of any consequence. Not all tenants are keeping pace.

Arbitration Antics: Warren, Porter, Press Regulator to Explain Yet Another Way Wells Fargo Found to Game the System

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep Katie Porter press regulator for answers as to how Wells Fargo apparently gamed the arbitration system.

Links 2/13/2022

How to Deal with a “Bretton Woods Moment”

A new global economic system has to be based on a key principle of Bretton Woods: multilateralism

Links 2/12/2022

Faster Internet Displaces Social Capital in the UK

Confirmation of the notion that the Internet displaces social time with real people.

What Are Taxpayers Spending for Those ‘Free’ Covid Tests? The Government Won’t Say.

The officialdom is not giving straight answers to simple questions about how much it spent procuring those “free” Covid tests.

2:00PM Water Cooler 2/11/2022

~ Today’s Water Cooler ~

Update: Supreme Court to Weigh EPA Authority on Greenhouse Pollutants

Additional briefs shed light on possible outcomes of major Supreme Court case scheduled for oral arguments this month.

Resource Nationalism on Rise in Latin America, As Fever for “White Gold,” aka Lithium, Grips the World

Countries in the region are taking greater control of the revenues generated by the minerals and hydrocarbons produced within their borders, in particular when it comes to lithium. 

Links 2/11/2022

Hubert Horan: Can Uber Ever Deliver? Part Twenty-Nine: Despite Massive Price Increases Uber Losses Top $31 Billion

Uber burns through yet more cash, but analysts and reporters fail to question its extremely misleading financials.

Resource Limits to American Capitalism & The Predator State Today

James K. Galbraith discusses the shift of the US from industrialism to his so-called predator state: finance-led, military-centered corporatism