TDS vs ODS vs BDS This is motivated by running on in the econoblogosphere to Trump supporters who when confronted with hard facts they cannot refute revert to name calling that those stating actual facts are suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (TDS). I have recently seen it thrown out “liberally.” What is going on here? […]
Justice Stevens Shoots At Gun Decision Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, now 99 years old, has written a book, The Making of a Justice: My First 94 Years. Apparently he considers the District of Columbia versus Heller decision to be the worst of all those that was made during his time on the Supreme Court, that […]
Who Needs Critical Thinking? Apparently not the US military. “Critical thinking” has long been a buzz phrase of US higher education. There was a time when I could not hear a speech by a higher administrative person at my or other higher ed institutions that did not tout critical thinking as a really important goal […]
Robert J. Samuelson Denounces Economists While often on Mondays at the Washington Post, Robert J. Samuelson is spouting VSP lines about how we must be responsible and cut Social Security benefits. However, today he has written on “What economists don’t know,” which comes across as a pretty big spanking for economists, among whom he does […]
The Psilocybin Referendum In Denver This is one of the last things I was expecting to see happen; that a referendum in Denver would effectively decriminalize magic mushrooms or more specifically the main constituent component of them, the psychedelic drug, psilocybin. But this has happened in the Mile High City, if by a narrow margin. […]
Iran: An Unfortunate Anniversary And Getting Worse It was a year ago today that President Trump removed the United States from the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran as well as Russia, China, UK, France, Germany, and the EU, under the auspices of the UN Security Council. According to IAEA inspectors, Iran was fulfilling its part […]
The John Bates Clark Award And Me Getting Old Yes, this is going to all be about me! 🙂 So, before getting to me, me, me, let me congratulate Emi Nakamura of the UC-Berkeley economics dept for receiving the John Bates Clark Award. It seems to be well deserved for her innovative and influential work […]
Trump Drops The Other Iran Oil Shoe US SecState Pompeo announced early today that the waivers granted to 8 nations allowing them to continue to import oil from Iran will not bee renewed when they expire in early May. I am not sure of the identity of three of those nations, but the big five […]
Media Continues VSP Story On Social Security Here we go again. We have arrived at the time for the release of the annual Social Security Administration (SSA) report. It got the usual headlines across the media, that the SSA will “run out of money” in 2034. Most of the stories played it all scary, although […]
What Is The “Collusion Delusion”? The Trump crowd has long claimed that there was “no collusion, ” repeatedly in many venues. Somehow the MSM picked up on this screed, and so it is out there that indeed that the Mueller Report declared that there was “no collusion,” a phrase that somehow Trump himself long put […]