Do Languages Get Simpler When They Get More Complicated? Oh, a minor diversion from the usual political economy stuff that goes up here. This is triggered by an article in last week’s The Economist on the nearly dead San language, Nluu. It has only two living fully fluent speakers alive, both in their 80s. The […]
The Trumpification of Xi Jinping The Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) has achieved great outcomes over the last several decades, especially after the late Deng Xiaoping took effective control of the nation from Maoist holdovers. He set a model of indirect and collective leadership in contrast with Mao Zedong who ruled nearly absolutely for nearly […]
Larry Summers Doubles Down On His Inflation Prediction But somehow becomes vaguer about exactly how this is going to happen and show up, but he wants the Fed to stop it in its track, goshdarnit. This is in a column appearing in the Washington Post, May 25, “The inflation risk is real.” Well, he does […]
Bibi Gets To Stay In Office (For Now) With the welcome cease fire in Israel-Palestine, it looks like Bibi Netanyahu has achieved his near term goal of remaining prime minister of Israel, thus not only remaining power but also out of jail, with barely anybody noticing that he has done this. His rival, Yair Lapid, […]
The Public Reappearance Of The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Sigh, so much that is so obvious, and so much that is not, but so much that is so sad, especially as there seems to be little real prospect of any serious improvement or settlement on the underlying issues. Indeed, it is probably the case we did not […]
The Death of Dick Day I learned a few days ago that Richard (Dick) Hollis Day died about a month ago. There is no obit yet, so I do not have exact dates of birth or death, but communicating with an old mutual friend who knows his oldest son, apparently he succumbed to dementia and […]
A Recent Correlation Regarding Political “Leadership” And The Coronavirus The recent correlation I have noticed, with others commenting on it also, is that some of the most prominent nations with the most rapidly rising rates of coronavirus infections are led by somewhat authoritarian leaders who have recently dismissed the threat of it and engaged in […]
So Much For May Day Today is May Day. An ancient point of the Gaelic calendar marking spring, it was long marked by pagan fertility celebrations and rites, dancing around May poles and the like, with many variations on this in different countries. The day became associated with the worker’s movement in 1886 when in […]
Robert Mundell And Supply Side Economics The death of Nobel Prize winner Robert A. Mundell at age 88 has brought forth much discussion about his work and legacy. Most of this discussion, such as several columns by Paul Krugman, have commented favorably on the work for which he was officially given the prize, several papers […]
Bellwether Bullard versus Sirenic Summers So this is about the now getting to be passe topic of what will happen to inflation this year, with Larry Summers having gone out of his way to make a lot of noise in criticizing the expansionary fiscal policy partly passed but partly still under consideration in Congress as […]