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Maybe it’s going to work out after all? There’s a lot of economic news this holiday week. The media is slowly but surely beginning the turn although they give Biden no credit even as Trump is out there saying we’re in a recession and acting as if he presided over Camelot or something. But really, the news is good. Here’s one little data point from the professionals who have no reason at all to blow smoke. (After all, they can make money either way…) Here’s the Goldman Sachs projection for 2024: Unemployment to stay low, 3.6%. Wage growth of 3.5% with inflation at 2%, meaning real wage growth of 1.5%. Overall growth of 2%. FRB starts cutting interest rates throughout 2024. — Our most out-of-consensus call for 2024 is our growth forecast. Our 2% forecast for 2024 Q4/Q4 GDP growth is well above consensus of 0.9% and the FOMC’s 1.4% forecast. This reflects our view that the growth impulses from changes in financial conditions and changes in fiscal policy should be modest and roughly neutral on net next year. It also reflects our forecast that consumer spending will easily beat expectations—we expect 2% growth vs.

Our 19th most-read article of 2023.

Originally published November 14, 2023.

Hi there!

Thank you for your message. I am currently in the office with email access. Due to the volume of distractions, I will not get any work done. Please expect a reply between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. when I am home from the office trying to squeeze an entire workday into a few uninterrupted evening hours.

Hello!

Because my employer overextended on corporate real estate, I am working a hybrid schedule. I am in the office today, technically able to respond to email, but unlikely to do so. The pressure to support the urban ecosystem is overwhelming, and if I do not spend seventeen dollars a day at Sweetgreen, the economy will collapse, and the concept of downtown will go the way of the dinosaurs.

Greetings!

The first step in fixing any problem is acknowledging it. And for Australia on climate change, that means admitting we are a petrostate. The paradox is glaring: while the UAE and Saudi Arabia are readily acknowledged and seemingly proud to be petrostates, Australia’s similar status is unspoken. It’s time to confront this uncomfortable truth – Continue reading »

How long will it take for the many Jewish Israelis who support the current destruction of Gaza to see that what is unspeakable about the Holocaust lurks in their government and state’s actions there? Whatever valley-flower of moral cause it might put before the world, always of its own choosing, this is the fact we Continue reading »

In the wake of the prosecution of David McBride something has emerged about our Constitution that should give every Australian cause for serious concern, this being that the oath taken by both our armed forces and our parliamentarians is one which obliges them solely to be loyal to a foreign monarch, not to the Australian Continue reading »

The contempts highlighted by Justice Michael Lee in the recent defamation case between Bruce Lehrmann and Channel 10 are minor compared with the blatant leaking of phone transcripts. During the Lehrmann case, police handed to Lehrmann’s solicitors thousands of pages of texts and emails between the alleged victim and others, from nearly a year before Continue reading »

In the mid-1980s when I was at Boston College, a Jesuit university, one of the lecturers commented that the Catholic Church hierarchy was fearful of a schism in the church. Too late, he remarked, it is already here, informally. He pointed out that the majority of students at that Catholic university no longer believed the Continue reading »

As the New Zealand coalition government backs closer alignment with US geo-strategic interests, critics warn of instability and loss of sovereignty in a region militarisation is dividing. Concerns are rising for peace and sovereignty in the Pacific after strong signals from New Zealand’s new government that it wants to swiftly join the US-led military alliance Continue reading »

One of the most memorable tales from Tony Birch’s 2006 debut collection, Shadowboxing, is The Butcher’s Wife. In this short story, the titular wife sensationally murders and dismembers her husband after he beats her in full view of everyone in the street. The physical distress of regular beatings is almost to be taken for granted in Continue reading »

Following Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel that caused more than 1,200 fatalities, there was a barrage of injunctions from Western mainstream media, politicians, and pundits insisting that anybody wishing to express an opinion on the events and the ensuing Israeli war crimes and genocide in Gaza, first denounce Hamas before expressing any other view. Continue reading »

A central characteristic of narcissistic sadists according to the great psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm, is their desire to reduce all living matter to dead matter. Fromm describes these narcissistic sadists as necrophilious characters. We are currently witnessing the genocidal actions of a necrophilious duo of Netanyahu and Biden. The first claims to be Jewish, the second Continue reading »

The presidents’ Christmas messages I posted Trump’s Christmas eve message in an earlier post. It was something. He went even further on Christmas: He was busy all Christmas morning, going to church, enjoying the grandkids, watching a little football. Oh wait, no he wasn’t: By contrast: At least the mainstream media is covering it. I don’t know about Fox. I’d guess not…

Russell T. Davies's Ncuti Gatwa & Millie Gibson-starring Doctor Who special & the Ghosts finale brought big numbers to the BBC for Christmas.

There is still time Digby yesterday on the climate crisis: So kids, I’m begging you to devote as much energy as possible to this issue and make the smartest political decisions you can make right now. This just can’t wait. — there’s literally nothing more important to your future. None of the other things you care about will matter if this doesn’t get fixed. It’s now or never. It’s been gently raining all night. It’s supposed to rain all day. Steady, gentle rain. That’s different from the violent summer downpours that flood streets and basements across the neighborhood. No amount of hydrological remediation in your yard is going to stop that. The problem is climate change may be accelerating (Washington Post – gifted): For the past several years, a small group ofscientists has warned that sometime early this century, the rate of global warming — which has remained largely steady for decades — might accelerate. Temperatures could rise higher, faster. The drumbeat of weather disasters may become more insistent.

A seismic shift possible Next year’s presidential election will be like no other. No matter who the major party candidates are. After the last, the outgoing Oval Office occupant instigated a violent insurrection to retain power that he could not win at the ballot box. The 2024 campaign will inform the world whether our nation “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” can endure much longer. Polls taken this early suggest that a race between incumbent Joe Biden and Donald Trump is tight. The House Jan. 6 committee determined that Trump “lit that fire” on Jan. 6. The Colorado Supreme Court, having found there was “no question” that Trump supported the insurrection, has disqualified him from the state’s ballot. Federal and state felony charges against Trump for his actions stand pending trial. Norman Eisen, Celinda Lake and Anat Shenker-Osorio suggest the race could shift significantly if Trump is convicted before November 2024.

Our 20th most-read article of 2023.

Originally published June 20, 2023.

1984

Being a Big Brother is hard. I bet it makes you angry when Winston doesn’t submit to your will. Sometimes when people don’t submit to our will, we want to torture them with rats. I’m going to sit with you until you feel calmer, and then we can figure out a way to get Winston to submit without using rats.

Great Expectations

You don’t want to get changed right now, because you were jilted on your wedding day many years ago. I completely understand. You’re frustrated. I would be too. I know it’s much more fun to sit in with a decaying wedding feast while using your adopted daughter to exact revenge on all men, but we have to get changed, because you’re on fire. Let’s set a timer.