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

RIP Steve Horwitz

RIP Steve Horwitz Steven G. Horwitz died the day before yesterday of lymphoma at age 57.  Probably most reading this do not know who he was, but he was somebody I knew quite well, even as I disagreed with him quite a lot about economics. He was arguably the leading monetary economist out of the […]

Will Tether Bring All The Cryptocurrencies Way Down?

Will Tether Bring All The Cryptocurrencies Way Down?  I do not know, but there is a fairly serious argument now out there that this could happen.  It is made by Gennaro at hackermoon.com/tether-and-the-great-crypto-ice-age-115h329k , picked up on by Tyler Cowen on Marginal Revolution without comment. Among those Gennaro cites at least partly supporting his argument […]

Bottom Line On The Biden-Putin Summit

Bottom Line On The Biden-Putin Summit  According to Robyn Dixon of the Washington Post on 6/18/21 regarding the outcome of the Buden-Putin summit in Geneva, I shall simply quote directly from what looks to be the bottom line from Putin himself: Despite a packed European tour schedule, Biden “looked fresh” and was “fully aware of […]

Why Are Infrastructure Costs So High In The US?

Why Are Infrastructure Costs So High In The US? Sorry, but anybody wanting some simple answer on this one, especially an ideologically neat one, sorry, there is not one, Indeed, on this important issue, there is a large problem, but not remotely a clear answer regarding why there is this large and important problem. For […]

The Cornwall Paradox

The Cornwall Paradox  The County of Cornwall has been in the news as the site of the G7 summit, just ended. In today’s Washington Post an article “In Cornwall, a jarring contrast of power and poverty,” by Karla Adam and Loveday Morris, a paradox of this visit is highlighted and brought out, indeed, that Cornwall […]

The Zhou Enlai Paradox

The Zhou Enlai Paradox A bit over a half century ago when Henry Kissinger was organizing Richard Nixon’s visit to China, he was largely interacting on this matter with Zhou Enlai (Chou-Enlai in Wade-Giles transliteration). He reported that during their negotiations he asked Zhou what he thought of the French Revolution.  Zhou replied that “It […]

Global Polls

Global Polls OK, so I think the nations surveyed are biased, but I have now seen two polls with roughly similar polls.   So Pew, with a larger base and solid credibility has that among foreign nations polls in their nations data set showed an improvement in favorability rating for the POTUS have gone from 17% […]

Treasury Secretary Yellen Achieves A Victory

Treasury Secretary Yellen Achieves A Victory  This is her getting the G-7 finance ministers to agree to a minimum 15% corporate tax. It is easy to sneer at this. Some of the nations involved may not pass it. There are many problems with details, such as whether the tax would be on gross or net […]

My Latest Book

My Latest Book Heck, I might as well brag here when I have the opportunity, and I do.   So, just a couple of days ago my latest book came out from Springer Nature.  It is called Foundations and Applications of Complexity Economics.  I am not going to go on about it or its contents other than […]