Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

On the Road to…China

(Dan here…more to come) by Joseph Joyce On the Road to…China I have just returned from the 4th HenU / INFER Workshop on Applied Macroeconomics in Kaifeng, China, which was organized by Makram El-Shaghi and Zhang Lin. There were many interesting presentations that are listed in the program.

For a Fiscal Neutrality Amendment

For a Fiscal Neutrality Amendment Against the dogmatic ignorance of a proposed amendment to the US constitution mandating a balanced budget, I propose an alternative, a fiscal neutrality amendment: “No unit of government within the United States may establish voting or other decision procedures that embody a bias in favor of either higher or lower […]

Take Back ICE

Take Back ICE U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was established 15 years ago: ICE was granted a unique combination of civil and criminal authorities to better protect national security and public safety in answer to the tragic events on 9/11. Leveraging those authorities, ICE has become a powerful and sophisticated federal law enforcement agency. My […]

It is All in the Timing

In his editorial “Say Hello to Your Boy. A Special Guy,” Josh Marshall at TPM had this to say: “When I first read the Times story I wasn’t sure whether the younger Kennedy (Justin), whose title was Managing Director and Global Head of Real Estate Capital Markets, would have been someone to actually make loans […]

Immigration Politics In Europe Versus Immigration Politics In The US

Immigration Politics In Europe Versus Immigration Politics In The US Immigration politics in both places has gotten very ugly, but it strikes me that in Europe it may be worse than in the US.  We may be about to see the fall from power this weekend of Angela Merkel as Chancellor of Germany over the […]

This is real

Robert Waldmann caught this tweet: The North Korean national anthem was played at a Virginia Women for Trump gala. It was to pay tribute to the Trump-Kim Summit. https://t.co/ZytMX9gVbd — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 28, 2018

The Mezzogiorno Problem Revisited

The Mezzogiorno Problem Revisited I have recently returned from participating in a conference in Naples, Italy on “The Economy as a Complex Spatial System” where there many papers and much discussion about the longstanding poverty problem in southern Italy, long labeled “the Mezzogiorno problem.”  Mezzogiorno literally means midday or noon, but has long been applied […]

Anthony Kennedy Retires

Anthony Kennedy will retire July 31. This gives Trump and Republican Senators a chance to nominate and confirm a fifth hard right justice. Already the Court has become extremely ideological and activist. Today it declared that Unions couldn’t require employers to pay the union a a fixed amount per worker, because that allegedly violated the […]

Recent SCOTUS Decisions

“I have rarely seen so much inconsistency and even hypocrisy from the Supreme Court as in its decision to uphold President Trump’s travel ban.” On the Colorado SCOTUS Decision A few weeks ago, the court found that members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had expressed impermissible hostility to religion because of relatively mild statements […]