Tear Gas Versus Pepper Spray Or pepper gas. So, AG Barr and Pres. Trump (and also the commander of the US Park Police, I think) have been hotly denying that tear gas was used last Monday June 1 in the attack by the Praetorian Guard on peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square. Various of them have […]
Has Trump Created A Praetorian Guard In Washington? President Trump has already shown his Orwellian tendencies by giving a speech on Monday in the Rose Garden in which he declared his “respect” for peaceful protesters at the very moment that forces ultimately responding to an order by Trump violently attacked peaceful protesters in front of […]
Jobs Report Not Really All That Surprising I am a bit taken aback at how shocked so many are about the new jobs report showing that net hiring in May was positive. For regular readers here I have made several posts here noting that the US economy was almost certainly growing, probably for at least […]
Global Oil Demand Rises Back on April 20 we saw briefly the bizarre appearance of negative oil prices in certain markets. Today for the first time in many months Brent crude briefly topped $40 per barrel, although it fell back below that level (WTI is tending to be about $3 behind it, despite a single […]
Ironies Of Minneapolis In 1944 the Minnesota Democratic Party united with the Farmer-Labor Party to form the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota, one of the most progressive state branches of the US Democratic Party. In 1948 its mayor of Minneapolis, Hubert H. Humphrey introduced at the national convention the resolution supporting civil rights for African-Americans whose […]
Meanwhile, As Minneapolis Burns So now we are all focused on the recent horrific murder in Minneapolis and now the subsequent events that are happening in many parts of the nation, with Minneapolis the epicenter. This is serious, and I have an idea how it will end. This has even distracted us from the usual […]
Death And The Pandemic Economy The relation between death and the pandemic economy is a fraught one that has become hotly debated, although with not much clear empirical evidence. I note that recently over on Econbrowser Menzie Chinn has had a series of posts on this matter in various forms. Obviously a big issue has […]
More On “Obamagate!” Just three items. 1) Today (or yesterday late?) AG William Barr appointed yet another Special Counsel to investigate “Obamagate!” John Bash of the Texas Western District of the DOJ. He has been assigned to investigate the various unmaskings of Michael Flynn that happened between the election of 2016 and Flynn’s interrogation by […]
“Dr. Doom” At It Again: Predicts 10-Year Depression That would be Nouriel Roubini of NYU who got his moniker back during the Great Recession, which he called pretty well in 2006. He did this clearly yesterday in an interview in The Intelligencer, although he has been pushing something like this for some time now, bringing […]
RIP Oliver Williamson Oliver Williamson died yesterday at age 87, I do not know of what. He was famous as the main developer of New Institutional Economics, following the influence of Ronald Coase, which emphasizes the role of transactions costs in the formation and development of economic (and some other) institutions. He received the Nobel […]