Our Worrisome GDP April 28, 2022
Posted by geoff in News.1 comment so far
The sad GDP numbers came out today, with a 1.4% drop from last quarter (on an annual basis). I don’t like that way of reporting things, because it gives you a meaningless snapshot of the GDP. I prefer looking at this:
[This is a screencap of the inflation-adjusted GDP from the Saint Louis Fed]
You can see the steady growth since the last recession, with an uptick in growth when Trump was elected. Then came COVID-19, with the economy rebounding after Q2 2020. But the rebound slows down quite a bit after Q2 2021. Must be Russia.
Obviously next quarter will be critical – if the GDP shrinks again, there will be grounds for saying our economy’s in recession.
When Life Imitates Art April 18, 2022
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Here’s Life:
Want abs like Kelly Gale? Victoria’s Secret model reveals how to get a washboard stomach with a simple eight minute workout
And here’s Art:
Hopefully Bidding a Final Farewell to COVID-19 April 17, 2022
Posted by geoff in News.6 comments
Time to get back to posting, and what better way than to do a quick update on COVID-19. You remember COVID-19. It dominated our lives for two years until everybody said, “Enough!”
And now it’s gone (chart from CDC website):
As you can see, and as was pointed out ad nauseum by us (conservatives et al.) at the time, the under-50 set was never at any significant risk of death from COVID. So Fauci’s limited imagination concerning appropriate health responses caused an enormous amount of damage to the country and its people . . . with little benefit.
Next stop on the COVID train is vaccinations: how many people opted for the booster shot? Personally, I did the first two shots and bailed when it was apparent that they were going to recommend boosters every 4 – 6 months for eternity. Seems like a lot of other people felt like I did (graph is from the CDC):
Pfizer and Moderna must be gnashing their teeth watching their profit streams wither away.
The CDC used to make it really easy to compare data for up to 6 states, but they removed that feature recently. Gotta believe that they decided it was casting a bad light on the blue states, and had to be suppressed.
Finally, here’s another way to decide how well masks and social distancing work. If you compare urban and rural cases, you can get a rough idea of how sensitive COVID transmission is to population density, which provides the same sort of effect as masks & social distancing. As you can see below (graph from the CDC), the answer is, “Not very.” As many countries have found, you can delay it, but you’re going to get it eventually.
Relocation More or Less Complete April 4, 2022
Posted by geoff in News.3 comments
Been distracted for the past 4 months with my move to Texas. Got tired of the snow and the bluer and bluer behavior of the Colorado government. Not promising anything, but now that I’m here I may have a bit more time for blogging.
There’s certainly plenty to graph about.
Innocent Bystanders 