Things Getting Very Worrisome Yes, signs regarding a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine have gotten much worse in the last few days. I am hearing from my wife that Russian media are now claiming there are lots of US troops in Ukraine. Such a claim, not even backed up by some fake video, would clearly […]
Can Ukraine Become A New Austria? In this Sunday’s Washington Post, columnist David von Drehle suggests that a way out of the difficult Russia/Ukraine situation would be for Ukraine to become like what happened with Austria in 1955 and since; it formally became officially neutral, not joining either NATO or the Warsaw Pact, and has […]
Surgery Tomorrow I shall be having a parathyroid removed tomorrow (Feb. 2) at University of Virginia hospital. Will be going over this evening to avoid freezing fog. So, I shall be out of commission for a while. Barkley Rosser
A Flip In Oil Markets, Econospeak, Barkley Rosser A long time ago, sometime before the 2008 crash, prices of Brent crude oil and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude ran close to each other. WTI would from time to time would exceed Brent, with them kind of bouncing around as they moved along. This changed with […]
“I shall Defend The Rights Of Parents” This is what new Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin said when he made an executive order on the first day of his term to ban school systems from having mask mandates. Some systems will not go along, including that in Arlington and mine in the city of Harrisonburg. He […]
Is The Downward Sloping Phillips Curve Back? Maybe. We have gotten so used to the idea that to the extent it is even meaningful it is flat at an inflation rate of 2%, nobody talks about the old textbook Phillips Curve that slopes down. But there is some evidence that out of all these pandemic […]
The Central Asian Alphabet Issue It remains too soon to comment in detail on the current upheaval in Kazakhstan as it is simply impossible to figure out what is happening, with multiple conflicting accounts and claims coming from many sources. Rather I want to comment on a deeper question that has been brought up in […]
Incoming Virginia Governor Youngkin Goes In All Anti-Environment Incoming GOP Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has just announced his choice for Secretary of Natural Resources, Andrew Wheeler, a longtime coal lobbyist, who served as Trump’s EPA director in the latter part of his term. He has an utterly abysmal environmental record, so bad I cannot think […]
Classicalism and Revolution, Econospeak, Barkley Rosser For those of you of a branch of Orthodox Christianity still using the Julian calendar, such as the Russian branch, Merry Christmas! I am tempted to comment on the situation in Kazakhstan, but I think we do not know what is going on there yet, so not now. Instead […]
Dare I Disagree With David Ignatius? In today’s Washington Post (Dec. 31 ), intel columnist David Ignatius had a ten question multiple choice quiz about what will happen in 2022. He provided his own answers at the end, effectively forecasting. Many I agree with and some, speculative about tech developments and such like, I have […]