More Apologies and a Very Sad Explanation

I apologize for the lack of posts, but my time with the blogosphere has become limited due to tragic circumstances at my workplace.

As noted, "Some Defunct Economist" waits tables. The restaurant I work at is something of a local institution. A few of the servers have been there for years, and one in particular has worked there since the late '70s.

This last weekend she went to the hospital with some chest pains and learned that she has multiple health problems, including cancer, which has metastasized.

She won't be back to work.

Since we are a small organization, the rest of us on the schedule have had to alter our schedules. I and a couple of other servers will be pretty much living there for the next few weeks.

I am very depressed by these events, such that even when I find time in front of my roommate's laptop I don't even want to think about stuff outside my direct line of sight.

I apologize for my current lack of zeal. Perhaps in a couple of weeks I'll do more than simply complain, but until then, keep the faith by doing two things: reading Krugman and expressing overt exasperation with both neoconservatives and supply side charlatans.

Thanks,

JJV

Apologies & Some Summarizing, Updated

My apologies: posting is light at I am again having some computer issues involving a spastic video card that is producing double vision. I will try to produce something later today/night but between my work schedule and my bum machine I will not be posting too much until one or another of the situations resolves itself.

It is 11 degrees here and snowing.

On to other news.

David Gregory is the new host of Meet the Press.

Obama is promising big infrastructure projects, while Krugman, who advocates such policies, worries that they will take a while--up to a year--to rally the real economy since they take time to plan and execute. So, hopefully, extended unemployment benefits and food stamps for the short-term? They provide the best bang for the buck, anyway.

Obama, being no idiot, knows this, and honestly admits that the economy will get worse before it gets better.

Obama's honesty is quite refreshing, but also states the incredibly obvious: American citizens read/heard/watched on Friday, when the latest jobs report announced that over a half-million jobs had been "lost" in November alone.

Robert Reich wonders if we can call Depression 2.0 a Depression yet. When professional economists are freaking out, well, things are pretty grim.

It may not look like it at first, but the fact the Senate refuses to let Vice President-Elect Joe Biden join in its deliberations is probably a very good thing for those sensitive to separation of powers, checks and balances, a non-tyrannical executive branch, civil liberties, and the overall general reasons constitutional republics are preferable to banana republics.

The AP reports on Freddie Mac's drive to free itself of regulatory control. Wow, they spared no expense.

George Will often makes no sense. Here, he continues in the same vein, inventing a new ideology, reactionary liberalism, and then ascribing it some curious goals. Ysglesias' take on Will's column is here. My fascination is this: it was conservatives not liberals who turned "liberal" into a dirty word by doing exactly what Will does here, which is to make stuff up and rhetorically link liberals to it. Will's market fundamentalism might be amusing were he not so insistent on not learning anything at all from recent economy history.

Well, back to watching the Vikings try to end the Lions' winless streak and then off to work.