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

Fucking With The Football

That would be the nuclear football, the one that a President of the United States can use to destroy all human life on the planet with by pushing some buttons.  It turns out there is a second one, a backup, one that is kept near the backup President. That would be the Vice President. So […]

Is Bitcoin Really Real Money? Ontological and Epistemological Questions

Is Bitcoin Really Real Money? Ontological and Epistemological Questions  The movement to make Bitcoin into a de facto form of money has taken a step forward when Elon Musk declared that he would be purchasing over a billion btc.  Some are claiming that Musk did this to pump up an alternative asset because Tesla stock […]

Pushing Back For Democracy Around The World

Pushing Back For Democracy Around The World  Given the massive impetus the presidency of Donald Trump gave to authoritarian and anti-democratic forces around the world, it is worth seeing that his defeat in a democratic election, despite his efforts to illegally overturn it, seems to have been followed by some outbursts of pro-democratic demonstrations in […]

RIP Michael Perelman

RIP Michael Perelman  I have just learned that old friend Michael Perelman has “passed quietly in his sleep” (not reported of what) on September 21, 2020, having been born on October 1, 1939, so just shy of his 81st birthday.  I knew Michael for a long time and considered him a personal friend, although it […]

Is China Now Number One?

Is China Now Number One?  Actually I think focusing on such questions can be a not very useful exercise, but here I am asking it anyway.  As it is, indeed the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) is indeed Number One on a number of important grounds, although probably the bottom line is that the world […]

Why Has AMLO Delayed Congratulating Biden On His Inauguration?

Why Has AMLO Delayed Congratulating Biden On His Inauguration?  Maybe he has now done it, although I have been unable to find any reports of him doing so.  But almost alone among world leaders, I think joined only by Kim Jong Un of North Korea, Mexicos’s President known as “AMLO” did not basically immediately congratulate […]

Extending START

Extending START  It is not a big headline story among all the other things newly inaugurated Joe Biden is doing, but it is being reported that despite a generally more hostile approach to Russia, he has agreed with what Russian President Putin has said he wants, which is to simply extend the current nuclear weapons […]