Sean Monahan
LightNews LightNews
banner
seankmonahan.bsky.social
Sean Monahan
@seankmonahan.bsky.social
210 followers 240 following 5 posts
O’Neill’s dad. Actor, writer, improviser. Teacher of communication/collaboration.
www.westsidecorporate.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Sean Monahan
kevinmkruse.bsky.social
Congrats to everyone who insisted they were better off four years ago -- you made it right back to the safety and security of "early COVID pandemic"
cullenhendrix.bsky.social Cullen Hendrix @cullenhendrix.bsky.social · Feb 16
There you have it. The Economic Policy Uncertainty Index (www.policyuncertainty.com) just hit an all-time high, surpassing its previous high from May 2020 - the teeth of the #COVID pandemic.

Consequences: worse investment climate, higher risk premia, (likely) higher interest rates...
We (the original researchers, not the poster) develop a new index of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) based on newspaper coverage frequency. Several types of evidence – including human readings of 12,000 newspaper articles – indicate that our index proxies for movements in policy-related economic uncertainty. Our US index spikes near tight presidential elections, Gulf Wars I and II, the 9/11 attacks, the failure of Lehman Brothers, the 2011 debt-ceiling dispute and other major battles over fiscal policy. Using firm-level data, we find that policy uncertainty is associated with greater stock price volatility and reduced investment and employment in policy-sensitive sectors like defense, healthcare, finance and infrastructure construction. At the macro level, innovations in policy uncertainty foreshadow declines in investment, output, and employment in the United States and, in a panel VAR setting, for 12 major economies. Extending our US index back to 1900, EPU rose dramatically in the 1930s (from late 1931) and has drifted upwards since the 1960s. The index for January 2025 reached its highest point of any time since the mid 1990s, when the primary index begins. It's higher than during the worst months of the pandemic, when global trade and economic activity slowed abruptly, causing a massive global recession. Greater policy uncertainty, or the degree to which markets and expert forecasters disagree about the likely trajectory of the economy, is known to delay investment and hiring (Bernanke 1983), reductions in spending by households and firms, and constrained credit, with more adverse effects for developing countries. The Economic Policy Uncertainty Index measures the degree to which businesses, investors, and economic forecasters are uncertain about government policies related to fiscal and monetary policy, trade policy, and regulation. Link for data: https://www.policyuncertainty.com/.
February 16, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Reposted by Sean Monahan
crockett.house.gov
Inspectors General are key public servants tasked with holding our government accountable. They’re independent, nonpartisan whose work is identifying fraud, waste, & importantly, abuse. Trump just fired them all. Make no mistake: he's purging those who will protect the rule of law.
January 25, 2025 at 5:06 AM
Reposted by Sean Monahan
sethdmichaels.bsky.social
Trump’s election represents the triumph of normal Americans (a South African billionaire who does nothing but post all day) over unaccountable elites (a mid-level functionary in the EPA office of water enforcement with $25,000 in student loans)
November 22, 2024 at 10:14 PM
Reposted by Sean Monahan
malena.bsky.social
Do not tolerate intolerance!
#UniteAgainstHate
Take it from my ancestors...oh wait...
They were killed in the Holocaust because a lot of "good people" tolerated intolerance!
November 19, 2024 at 2:24 AM
Reposted by Sean Monahan
aaronparnas.bsky.social
BREAKING: For the first time ever, we have official confirmation of chemical weapons used by Russia in Ukraine.
November 18, 2024 at 11:43 PM
Reposted by Sean Monahan
thomaszimmer.bsky.social
A large chunk of the electorate believes Democrats have moved “far to the left” on “the border.” It’s complete nonsense that points to two crucial issues:
- The information environment is a disaster.
- The idea that Democrats just need to be a little more cruel to “convince” people is bizarre.
natcad.bsky.social Feral Human Rights Lawyer @natcad.bsky.social · Nov 15
This is the least serious take on the election that I’ve heard: that Dems are too progressive in immigration. They’ve all but killed the international right to seek asylum at the border. Advocating that we go further right by saying there are no more human rights at the border won’t save anyone.
Screenshot of podcast episode screen of an episode of Radio
November 16, 2024 at 5:04 PM