dan ryan

Calculated Risk: Final March Consumer Sentiment at 80.0 : Muddle, muddle, muddle

Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization : Annual Revision is another data point of the very slow but existent recovery.

IRS Says Bitcoin to Be Taxed As Gains; New Rule is Retroactive | Tax Foundation : I agree with the IRS's decision. The alternative of a currency has many implications that it is too early to define. This will evolve over time and can be reassessed.

Are American Teenagers Getting More Promiscuous? | FiveThirtyEight : As much as I have been disappointed with 538 - I do think the articles, while overly simplified, are in digestible sizes that lead to conversation. There is always a strong need for conversation around the data not simply data.

Calculated Risk: Q4 GDP Revised up to 2.6%, Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims decline to 311,000 : We continued to inch along to recovery. We will get there in two to three years - the bigger questions is how many will be left behind , how will we know if they are and what does that mean.

Robert Reich (The New Tribalism and the Decline of the Nation State) : This is an interesting take on the economic divide that continues to grow.

Social security won’t be around long enough for me to collect it — Crooked Timber : This continues to be one of the most frustrating areas of popular think that has never been and continues not to be based on reality. As my father retires this years and begins to collect Social Security - it reminds me that I need to continue to be thankful that we have not decided to gut the social contract we have with each other. Social Security is alive and well and pushing forward through all the the misinformation. On another note we are approaching 75 years of benefits. See the history of the first beneficiary here .