From December 2019 – December 2021, the M2 money supply (cash, checking deposits, and easily-convertible near money) increased 41%. This graph shows the close relationship in growth in the money supply and the inflation rate. We’ve had at least 5% inflation since May 2021, and up to 7% in November 2021, the latest month recorded. The inflation rate is the price of the same bundle of goods from 12 months ago to now.

An article in VT Digger today trumpets, “Attorney general reminds Vermonters of propane protection laws as snow, cold continue.” In Vermont, propane fuel dealers are required by law to deliver to customers, even if the customer isn’t up to date with paying all their past bills. We don’t let people freeze to death – if you heat with the fossil fuel propane that is.

Over the years our federal government has created all sorts of citizen corps. During World War I it was the American Protective League, that my grandfather belonged to. During the Depression, it was the Civilian Conservation Corps, pioneered by an old Vermonter named Perry Merrill. President Kennedy’s contribution was the Peace Corps, sending idealistic Americans off to distant climes to help life up the ignorant natives. President Johnson hatched the Job Corps, camps to train idle youths in needed job skills. The Northlands Job Corps Center in Vergennes survives to this day.

With the retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer, President Biden announced his intention to replace him on the Supreme Court with a Black woman. A following ABC News/Ipsos poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, disagree with that racial approach to filling the seat:

This year, the tri-partisan Legislative Apportionment Board (LAB) recommended that the Vermont legislature re-draw house and senate district boundaries (we do this every ten years following the census) so that there would be 150 single member house districts and 30 single member senate districts. This would be a change from Vermont’s current mishmash of one- and two-member house districts and one-, two-, three- and six-member senate districts.

Today, January 27, is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. According to a 2020 study from the Claims Conference, an alarming number of individuals from age 18 to 39 know little about the Holocaust, and young Vermonters are little different in this regard. The Claims Conference has advocated for Jewish Holocaust survivors since 1951, distributing $90 billion in compensation.