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

Define Rich, part II: Rat Race and the American Dream

I have had this re-posted today because I believe it is as relevant today as when I wrote it in May, 2009.  My hope is that this event we are living moves enough new people to realize the society we built is not sustainable.  My hope is that one of the basic questions I was […]

News flash: Libertarian invents new reason not to help people!

Thinking about the coronavirus is bleak, so let’s do some political philosophy to cheer ourselves up. Libertarian philosopher Jason Brennan has a new post up claiming that our obligations to help strangers are much weaker than we might think they are, and may not exist at all, because most people are “morally very bad”. Brennan […]

Coronavirus dashboard for April 13: Plateauing and stasis

Coronavirus dashboard for April 13: Plateauing and stasis Here is the update through yesterday (April 13). The bottom line is that infections and deaths appear to have plateaued, while there has been no progress towards any “test, trace, and quarantine” regimen that is the necessary next step; and to the contrary Trump appears to be […]

A thought for Sunday: a brief history of Republics anticipates Trump

A thought for Sunday: a brief history of Republics anticipates Trump I just finished reading William R. Everdell’s “The End of KIngs: A History of Republics and Republicans,” which was originally published in 1983. It was interesting to read a book that treated Watergate as recent history! I want to write at more length about […]

Weekly indicators for April 6 – 10 at Seeking Alpha

Weekly indicators for April 6 – 10 at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democratMy Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.. As you can imagine, most of the numbers are horrible. Clicking over and reading will bring you as up to date as you can be on the economy, and as usual rewards me a […]

Consumer prices sharply decline in March: keep your eye on wages

Consumer prices sharply decline in March: keep your eye on wages   This morning we got some monthly economic data that will be actually valuable to watch throughout this Coronavirus Recession: consumer prices. That’s because during recessions, consumer price growth decelerates, as does wage growth, which continues to decelerate well after the recession bottoms out. […]

The FDA

I am back complaining about the FDA as I have in The Ethics of Clinical Trials and 10 years earlier Clinical Trial Ethics (an aside — I had forgotten the old post and Google reminded me that I have been banging this drum for a decade). Now I have a lot of company, because of […]