(Dan here…a day late to AB better than not) Happy Sesquicentennial Birthday, Vladimir Lenin! (Oh, And Happy Half Century Earth Day) A half century ago today was the first Earth Day, which I paerticipated in while at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Although I did not know him well, I even met the founder of the […]
Prairie du Chien Selects Jill Karofsky Over David Kelly! I have previously posted on the highly swingy politicsal nature of southwestern Wisconsin, symbolized by the town there at the mouth of the Wisconsin River, French-founded Prairie du Chien (named for an Indian cheif, it turns out, who was “Dog of the Prairie” in English). It […]
Trump Defunds WHO and USPS: Will Motherhood and Apple Pie Be Next? Yes, Trump is out to cut the roughly half a billion $ US contribution to the $6 billion budget of the World Health Organization (WHO). It seems that he now sees his path to reelection to be based on blaming China for the […]
Trump All Over The Place On Oil Prices Indeed, are we surprised? But POTUS has reached a new level of hypocrisy on all this. So a while ago when oil prices began falling sharply, Trump bragged about how much this was going to help consumers, and he should get credit for it, of course. More […]
Something Good From The Panemic? Maybe A Cease Fire In Yemen Yes, in the midst of deaths and deep recession there may be someting good that may come from this pandemic. Saudi Arabia’s leaders have announced a cease fire in Yemen after five years of war, one also accepted by its ally, the recognized government […]
The D Word Yes, depression, and not the psychological type, although the economic type leads to the psychological type, whether ot not it is the other way around (see Keynes’ “animal spirits). I often make fun of Robert J. Samuelson in the Washington Post, but in Washington Post today he raised the possibility that we […]
In 2020 A March Of Madness, Econospeak Just before the end of February, President Trump declared that there were only 15 Covid-19 cases in the US, and that “they will soon go to zero.” Deaths from COVID 19 now passed 3,000 (March 30th) and yesterday Trump declared that because we might have had over 2 […]
“Is Pompeo The Worst Secretary Of State Ever?”, Econospeak, by Barkley Rosser This is the title of a column in today’s Washington Post by Jackson Diehl. His answer is an unequivocal “yes,” and I must say on thinking about it I know of no others clearly worse than him, maybe not even any as bad as […]
The Oil Price War One consequence of the emerging global Covid-19 recession has been that it has helped push world oil prices down from the $60.77 per barrel range near the beginning of 2020 to $23.12 for West Texas Crude and $29.00 for Brent Crude, levels not seen since the end of 2008. But part […]
The Coming Fiscal Crisis Of State And Local Governments Yesterday my wife Marina and I met with our personal attorney, a close friend also, to fix some loose ends in our wills due to some recent family deaths, as well the current situation. He also happens to sit on the Harrisonburg City Council, as well […]