Raz

Exactly. School should be for developing things like critical thinking skills and developing/practicing strategies for a lifetime of learning.

Interesting read. My favorite line is when shes’s asked if her skill is spinning stuff into a story: “No,” I reply. “My skill is keeping a straight face when someone tells me something, and inside I’m thinking: fucking hell.”

The BLS Can’t Be Replaced by the Private Sector Government statistical agencies provide breadth and context that private firms can’t match.

"Private companies are not in the business of creating public goods, which is what economic statistics from the government are."
says @claudia-sahm.bsky.social

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
#econsky

Good question. So I looked it up. If I’m reading this correctly, it looks like Dems outnumber Reps almost 3:1. More than half registered voters in MA are unenrolled (independent) www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/el...

"Public health workers are not the enemy:" former surgeon general Jerome Adams on yesterday's alarming attack on the CDC. www.statnews.com/2025/08/09/c...

The last time a President (Nixon) pressured the Fed Chair (Burns) to lower rates (when not appropriate) was in '71-'72.

In real terms, the S&P500 peaked in '72 and didn't return to that height until '87 (15 years).

In nominal terms, the S&P peaked in '72 and reached a new high in 1980.

Beware.

This should be self evident, but cuts like this are policy choices by proxy: making it harder to access a service people are entitled to is the same as putting into law "I'm trying to slowly kill this service by making sure qualified applicants can't get it and eventually give up."

In internal FDA town hall, employees raise concerns about staffing, impromptu expert meetings Exclusive: FDA employees, in a town hall after the ouster of Vinay Prasad, asked about unusual meetings and staff shortages. "We are struggling," one said.

#FDA 's new drug czar (who is also acting biologics czar) tried to reassure the regulatory agency's concerned staff in meetings this week. But it sounds like George Tidmarsh may not be the salvation of FDA's advisory committees. @lizzylawrence.bsky.social reports. www.statnews.com/2025/08/08/f...

Grocery stores that have been eating the cost of tariffs are about to pump the brakes. Some are looking to be more transparent about the coming price hikes.

Starting tomorrow, new tariffs of 15% to 50% hit a wide range of food items.

If you’ve got a household food budget, this is a must-watch.

The WSJ Editorial Board has just published an absolutely *brutal* takedown of RFK Jr.’s desire to end the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

“…about to dismantle a rare oasis of legal sanity.”

“Therein lies the real goal of Mr. Kennedy’s “fixes”: Enriching the personal-injury bar.”

Rand Paul: "We haven't seen the punishment yet, and that's rising prices in the tariffed goods. You will see that ... I think that happens in the next several months."

I’ve spent my life fighting bullies. I still believe there’s hope for America | Robert Reich As a child, an activist, and secretary of labor, I’ve seen the harm bullies cause. Yet I can see what led to Trump’s rise

I’ve spent my life fighting bullies. I still believe there’s hope for America | Robert Reich

We should have the House right now. Let me say it again: we should have the House.

This ain’t just a Texas problem, it’s a national problem. They’re stealing seats to keep power, and that’s how we ended up with Speaker Johnson instead of Speaker Jeffries.

They can’t win fair, so they cheat.

The problem is that most people can't comprehend such large numbers and just think a million is a lot and a billion is a bit more. A million seconds is 11 days. A billion seconds is 33 years. If everyone on earth suddenly understood this, every billionaire would be swinging from a lamp post

kennedy is going to kill a lot of people

Not fleeing: New report shows more wealthy residents in Mass., 2 years into 'millionaire's tax' Despite previous concerns, Massachusetts' "millionaire's tax" hasn't seemed to deter high-earners from continuing to live here, according to a new study from the Institute for Policy Studies.

1. The extra marginal tax rate will affect millionaires' daily lives almost not at all, which is why in reality none of them would leave the state.

2. When you have this much money, your accountant/financial folks are already making you as tax efficient as possible.

www.wbur.org/news/2025/04...

China welcomes 183 Brazil coffee sellers in wake of US tariffs China has approved 183 new Brazilian coffee companies to export products to the Chinese market, according to a social media post of the Chinese embassy in Brazil on Saturday.

China welcomes 183 Brazil coffee sellers in wake of US tariffs reut.rs/4mp1Ise

Trump’s tariffs leave us in the second worst of all worlds We may have avoided a global trade war but American consumers and businesses will still suffer

This applies to universities, law firms, etc. I’ll never understand why they don’t join forces and fight. “If countries around the world had made common cause, they may have had sufficient leverage to get the US to back down. Somewhat to my surprise, that never happened.” www.ft.com/content/6791...

I just had exactly this conversation this morning. I’ve had this conversation thousands of times at this point. Some people get angry with me. They call me a Doomer. That’s fine. I just don’t know what people see.

Why a NASA satellite that scientists and farmers rely on may be destroyed on purpose The Trump administration has asked NASA staffers to draw up plans to end at least two satellite missions that measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to current and former NASA employees.

The Trump administration has asked NASA staffers to draw up plans to end at least two satellite missions that measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to current and former NASA employees.

Larry Summers: "This is way beyond anything Nixon ever did ... this is the stuff of democracies giving way to authoritarianism. Firing statisticians goes with threatening the heads of newspapers, launching assaults on universities, launching assaults on law firms. This is really scary stuff."

AP The Associated Press @AP BREAKING: The Trump administration is pushing an initiative for millions of Americans to upload personal health data to new apps run by private tech companies. Gabrielle A. Perry, MPH @GeauxGabrielle Hi! Epidemiologist here! Don't do this. In the 80s and 90s this was done by Depts. of Health during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. "Somehow" the lists they created found their way into the hands of cops, landlords, & job sites to deny people human rights. It's partly WHY the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act exists

I just looked up Erika McEntarfer since the White House is portraying her as a Biden mole. This is laughable. She has a Ph.D. in Economics and spent 22 years as a government civil servant during Republican and Democratic administrations, including the first Trump administration. 🧵

Mr. Digre's company has long manufactured speakers in Minnesota for export, including to a major customer in Canada. His firm relies on certain materials from China, the only place to get many small components needed for speakers. But Mr. Digre must now pay a 55 percent tariff on those Chinese imports. As a result, manufacturing for that customer from the United States no longer makes sense. So Mr. Digre has shifted speaker production to a factory in China, where he will export directly to Canada and bypass the United States entirely.

Read this paragraph, please.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/b...

This is an amazing blow to democracy and an illustration of how Trump and the GOP are trying to impose minority rule. Great work from @ariberman.bsky.social

Let them eat cake.

Luke Farritor. Portrait of a Young DOGE Coder Dismantling America’s Institutions

NEW investigation: DOGE-Pilled

The full story on the transformation of 23 year-old Luke Farritor and how he ended up at the Department of Government Efficiency--slashing, dismantling, undoing--wielding a résumé that "didn’t pass muster”

NO PAYWALL!

www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

Gerrymandering: when data science meets moral bankruptcy.

Gerrymandering: the art of mathematically disproving majority rule.

You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone….