News Blog

1 big thing: How higher oil prices drive up food costs – Axios

Income and costs affect you and your neighbors differently – Sam Ro/TKer

“‘For low-income consumers, spending on essentials, including energy and food, is a larger share of both their total spending and their income,’ Morgan Stanley economists wrote last month. ‘As of the most recent Consumer Expenditure Survey from 2024, energy spend made up 8.2% of total spending for the bottom 20% income cohort compared to 4.8% for the top. Limiting to just gasoline, gas made up 3.6% for the bottom cohort versus 2.6% for the top.’

“Furthermore, fiscal policy affects consumers differently depending on their income level. It usually benefits those at the bottom — but that is not currently happening…

“An incremental dollar of earnings can improve a low-income person’s standard of living materially, whereas that same dollar may do little for someone whose living standards are already high. So, the low-income person is more likely to spend that dollar instead of saving it. This is why economists often argue that fiscal policy favoring low-income folks can have a more immediate stimulative effect on the economy…”

War-driven energy crisis boosts China’s sales pitch for renewable tech – msn/WaPost

Q: Are Chinese capitalists operating under the aegis of a communist party outperforming their US competitors and a Trump Administration now flailing a geopolitical ‘tar baby’ in the Persian Gulf?

Chinese chipmakers claim nearly half of local market as Nvidia’s lead shrinks – Business Times

“Beijing pushes domestic chips over foreign tech to cut dependence and bolster local alternatives”

How one factory in China learned to live with Trump, tariffs and turmoil – Reuters

‘Unhinged madman’: MTG, Schumer, Sanders react to President Trump’s expletive-laced Iran threat – msn/MEAWW

Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene – X

“…On Easter morning, this is what President Trump posted. Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshipping the President and intervene in Trump’s madness. I know all of you and him and he has gone insane, and all of you are complicit…”

Diaspora Jews, if you care about Israel – fight Jewish terrorism – Yiftah Elazar/Haaretz 

“…Joint Israeli and international action is needed because the role Netanyahu’s government plays in facilitating settler violence makes it unwilling and unlikely to take meaningful action. Jewish terrorism is not a bug but a feature of this government, which is ideologically committed to settlement expansion, de facto annexation of the West Bank, and displacement of Palestinian communities in pursuit of these goals. Jewish terrorism functions as part of its toolkit, with some of its supporters serving as ministers in the government.

“Accordingly, state authorities provide violent settlers with infrastructure and logistical support, while allowing them to act with impunity. Although some officials have recently begun to pay lip service to curbing such violence, meaningful action is likely to emerge only under extreme pressure.”

How many meetings and webinars have you sat through in which AI experts generalize in abstractions and metaphors about how AI is revolutionizing work without giving examples or case studies of exactly how AI works? These articles offer concrete examples of AI impacting the legal workforce:

Meet the early-adopter judges using AI – MIT Technology Review

“As the line between helping and judging blurs, the cost of errors is steep.”

Judges are increasingly using AI to draft rulings and prepare for hearings- msn/WaPost

“…Before a hearing, Rodriguez might also ask AI to suggest questions to ask an attorney or identify weaknesses in a plaintiff’s argument. In an area of law in which he feels particularly well-versed, Rodriguez sometimes — after deciding on his judgment — uses AI to draft the ruling he will issue. ‘I’m doing my own preparation,’ said Rodriguez, who has served for over 20 years in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. ‘I’m not strictly relying on an AI tool. … It’s just an extra set of eyes.’…”

Some Qs: An extra “set of eyes”? Or authorship? Should judges be required to document sequentially 1) their initial outlines or drafts, 2) suggestions by AI tools, and 3) final drafts incorporating AI suggestions? It looks like there is an AI tool that can do this (see end of article below):

Plagiarism vs. AI Plagiarism: What’s the Difference (and Why It Matters) – Adele Barlow/GPTZero

BTW, we just asked the internet (poor man’s AI) a couple background Qs that AI, and lawyers, should know about:

These are results from a google search responding to:  Is publishing writing composed by ai plagiarism? (When you click on this, the answer may vary from what we read at the time of this writing.)

These are results for is a browser or a search engine a form of AI? (same caveat).

Iran beefs up defenses, recruits children as it prepares for ground war – msn/WSJ

“…On the islands and from the nearby shores, Iranian troops in fortified tunnels would pound invading forces with cheap FPV drones and shoulder-mounted air defense missiles, said former Russian air force officer Gleb Irisov, who worked closely with Iranian forces when he was deployed in Syria. ‘There are no half-measures there,’ Irisov said. ‘The U.S. needs to land over 100,000 troops on the whole shoreline to defend and protect these islands and the strait. All other ways will end up in massive American casualties.'”

White House accidentally releases video of Trump saying the truth about war’s priority – MS NOW

“It was a complete and total lie.” – Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

Ashes, ashes:

Would we die this early if we were in any other group? – Street Sense Media

“…There’s one shelter in D.C., Christ House, that has all hospital beds with a medical staff, and it stays full. What a beautiful world it would be if each shelter had at least sick beds with visiting medical professionals checking in regularly. When I would take my clients living on the streets to the emergency room, before I could point my car back in the direction of the beltway, they’d be discharged. Why? Because hospital corporations now own all the community hospitals. I can’t help but think of a seriously ill, unhoused person living in the elements, at a bus stop, or sleeping on the ground without proper nutrition and rest, trying to recover from serious ailments.”

Life and Death at the Margins of Society: The Mortality of the U.S. Homeless Population – NBER

“Of the many hardships associated with poverty, heightened mortality risk is arguably the most alarming. More than a grim outcome, mortality is a fundamental indicator of quality of life, reflecting numerous dimensions of physical and mental health and one’s sense of safety and well-being. Extensive research spanning academic disciplines, countries, and time periods has established a robust correlation between heightened mortality risk and socioeconomic disadvantage (Kitigawa and Hauser 1973, Deaton and Paxson 1999, Cutler et al. 2006). This correlation holds true whether privilege is defined by income and wealth (Chetty et al. 2016, Boen et al. 2010), education (Cutler and Lleras-Muney 2006, Cutler et al. 2011), social and occupational class (Cutler et al. 2012), or geography (Currie and Schwandt 2016). Yet despite this broad literature, little is known about the mortality risk faced by people in the extreme lower tail of socioeconomic disadvantage, due in part to the difficulty of accurately identifying the most deprived individuals in existing data sources like household surveys (Meyer et al. 2021)…

“Unlike previous studies, we also compare the mortality of homeless individuals to people who are poor but housed. Our homeless sample’s mortality hazard is 2.1 to 3.2 times that of the housed poor over the twelve years. We also find that housed poor individuals’ mortality hazard is 1.4 to 2.1 times that of the housed population more broadly, but as we show in the next section, this disparity increases when we account for age and gender…”

Billionaire’s 6am email that wiped out 10,000 jobs as AI layoffs spiral – Daily Mail

Three Million Missing Jobs – Labor Matters/Substack

“…Take the five industries at the heart of the white-collar U.S. economy: Finance, Insurance, Information, Professional Services, and Business Services—what I call FIIPB. In practice, that covers much of the office and professional economy: banking, insurance, tech and media, consulting, legal and accounting, and administrative support. Together they account for more than 40% of GDP and have long served as the main entry point for college-educated workers beginning their careers…

“Three million FIIPB jobs didn’t disappear. They just never arrived.”

Faculty Fight Anti-Union Tactics at St. John’s University in New York – truthout

“…The survey found St. John’s to be in ‘solid financial condition’ but noted that the school has the highest management salaries in the country, and perhaps predictably, Bunsis reported that faculty salaries have not kept pace with inflation…

“Bunsis reported that basketball coach Rick Pitino’s six-year contract provides an annual salary of $3.3 million, with athletic spending far outpacing instructional spending. The average annual faculty salary is $80,757.”

All roads lead to stagflation – Michael Roberts Blog

“If oil and gas installations are permanently damaged or out of operation for a long time, then oil prices will rise further to reach $150/barrel—nearly three times pre-war levels—and natural gas prices would rocket to €120 MWh, or four times the pre-war rate. Such a rise would be comparable to the global supply shock of the late 1970s, which contributed to high inflation and global recession. France’s Finance Minister Roland Lescure reckons that 30–40% of Gulf refining capacity has already been damaged or destroyed by Iran’s retaliatory strikes, leaving a shortage of 11 million barrels a day on global oil markets. Lescure warned it could take up to three years to restore damaged facilities and several months to restart those that were urgently shut down.

“Goldman Sachs economists offer three scenarios: the baseline scenario is six weeks disruption where crude oil price rises to $120/barrel before falling back to $80–100, with no lasting infrastructure damage. The second scenario is a medium-term war (ten weeks) where the crude price spikes to $140/barrel, staying at $95+ for a further ten weeks. This would “scar” production permanently. The third scenario is apocalyptic (with ten weeks of war and lasting damage). Then the oil price rises to $160/barrel and never falls back below $100 for the foreseeable future because of damage to production facilities…”

Israel Passes Law to Hang Palestinians Convicted of Deadly Attacks – NYT

“Experts say the law was written in such a way as to ensure that it was unlikely to ever apply to Jewish extremists who commit similar crimes.”

New Israeli Law: Hangings for Palestinians, but No Noose for Jews – Harold Meyerson/TA

Ironic. Israel’s latest racist law targets Palestinians for hanging even as Israeli settlers routinely terrorize and lynch Palestinians while its army and police look the other way. The Jewish state’s new murder law is vile and indefensible.

Israel’s short and long-term goals remain the same: 1) remove Palestinians in any way politically feasible, and 2) take their land.

By partnering with Israel in the Iran war, President Trump has lashed the United States to Israel’s racist and genocidal policies. Drawing the US into a permanent conflict in the middle east benefits Israel. It does not benefit the people of the United States.

Who should cover the cost of Medicare’s funding shortfall?:

Who Pays Medicare-Related Taxes, Who Doesn’t, and Potential Revenue Reforms – Urban Institute

“…Extending the NIIT (Net Investment Income Tax) or self-employment taxes to certain active pass-through business income could raise as much as $330 billion and $540 billion over 10 years, similar in magnitude to Medicare Part A’s near-term but not long-term financing gap. The burden would fall overwhelmingly on high-income households, increasing overall tax progressivity and reducing incentives for tax-motivated business organizational choices…”

High-income Americans – who are getting the lion’s share of Medicare benefits – should cover the cost of Medicare’s funding shortfall, if Congress opts to raise taxes to do so. See comment below on how high-income Americans are getting the lion’s share of Medicare benefits because they live longer than low-income Americans.

You Are Paying for Retirees’ Lavish Lifestyles – Reason

“How America’s old-age entitlement system became a sprawling lifestyle-subsidy program that steals from the poor to give to the rich.”

Comment: The Reason article only scratches the surface. The widening gap in life span been well-off and low-income Americans is making the distribution of Medicare benefits more regressive.  Because well-off Americans live many years longer than the low-income, on average they consume far more in Medicare benefits over their lifetimes. According to a National Academy of Sciences study cited by CRS, “Among men born in 1960, those in the top income quintile could expect to live 12.7 years longer at age 50 than men in the bottom income quintile.”  Note that people in that generation are now reaching age 65 when they become Medicare-eligible.

In 2024, US taxpayers spent an average of $16,000 for each the country’s 67.3 million Medicare beneficiaries. If well-off workers entering the program live 10 years longer than at the economic bottom, taxpayers will end up spending a total of about $160,000 more per person for those the higher-income group.  Recent research also finds that an increasing number of low-income and minority Americans never receive any Medicare benefits because they die before age 65.

Another reason to tap the higher-income is that they have $$$ that can be taxed. The middle class, not so much. People at the bottom are broke. Or, instead of raising taxes, Congress could take on the lobbyists and cut US medical costs.

Monopoly Round-Up: The Iran Price Shock Begins – Matt Stoller/BIG

These States Are Most Impacted by the Spike in Gas Prices – ITEP

  • “The recent runup in gasoline prices is on pace to cost American drivers an extra $9.4 billion per month. For context, this is more than triple the size of the $2.8 billion monthly tax cut on tips and overtime found in last year’s federal tax bill.
  • “Gasoline prices are up dramatically across the country, but the South has been hit hardest and is on pace to pay $4.2 billion more per month. The average driving-age person in the South will pay $39 more per month in higher gas prices, compared to $34 nationally or $24 in the Northeast. If gas prices remain elevated, the average additional cost for households will be several hundred dollars per year.”

Dan Hurley salary vs. Jon Scheyer: How UConn coach’s contract compares to Duke counterpart – Sporting News

How much does UConn pay its men’s basketball team? Explaining the new era of big money – CT Insider

“…taxpayers who donate to UConn athletics or agree to endorsements or sponsorships with the school can receive a tax credit equal to 50% of their contributions, up to $500,000 a year. A $1 million gift to the athletic department, for example, would reduce someone’s state tax bill by $500,000…”

Duke Basketball Salaries: How Much Do Duke Basketball Players Get Paid? – Roundball Guide

Sunday, March 29, 2026

Trump’s tar baby?

300 US soldiers wounded as Israel vows to escalate strikes on Iran – ABC

So, how does the war end? When? Who benefits? Who does not?

How much will it cost the US to take and hold the Strait of Hormuz? And be able to assure reasonably safe (insurable) passage for 20% of the world’s oil supply?

Reopen the Strait of Hormuz? There’s one big problem: A brief history of sea mines, the weapon likely standing in President Donald Trump’s way. – WaPost

“…The Strait of Hormuz has become a political, diplomatic and economic minefield. Trump is keen to bluster through it. He’ll find that even once it’s open for business, merchant ships will tiptoe — until someone comes along to clean up the mess.”

US-Israel attacks on Iran: Death toll and injuries live tracker – Al Jazeera

Gas Prices Live

US Debt Clock

Staffing the new American plantation?:

Musk has a plan to make human labor obsolete. Billionaires are joining in. – msn/WaPost

The “Lo Hace Todo” model will be able to clean your house and tidy the yard with guaranteed savings over 5 years and can be programmed to refrain from stealing small items, ignore verbal abuse, and show deference in any language or dialect with sensitivity to owner’s political leanings. Comes with discount for disposal option guaranteeing that masked ICE androids currently being acquired by the government will haul away fully depreciated robots when the time comes.

In addition to these features, the “Optimum Spouse” (OS) model can be set to nod ‘yes’ to a predetermined percentage of your suggestions and commands. With advanced AI features, OS could be upgraded to improve the functionality of Trump cabinet members and leaders of the US Congress. Filibuster?