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

Branding and the business model of research universities

Our daughter only applied to two colleges, Washington University in St. Louis and Colorado State University in Ft. Collins. Tuition wasn’t an issue, since her mom was an employee of Wash U, and the university pays full tuition at Wash U or half of Wash U’s tuition at any other college or university for all […]

A little-known federal contractor is a big player in privatizing government services

We are again discussing people on Medicaid who may not know they have to reenroll. The largest unknowing segment of that population are those over 65 years of age. This is a combination of several different articles on the Medicaid Disenrollment occurring today. Private business again taking advantage of the lack of knowledge of people […]

Carbon capture and geoengineering

In a previous post, I made the point that even if all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions ceased tomorrow, the half-lives of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, together with climate change-driven gas emissions from melting permafrost and methane clathrates doom us to decades more of warming. The only ways to avert this are (1) carbon […]

Former Ohio House Speaker Finally sentenced to 20 years

As taken from this column and other sources as well. Former Ohio House speaker sentenced to 20 years in $60 million bribery scheme | CNN Politics, Sydney Kashiwagi. A Little Background: FirstEnergy and its executives denied wrongdoing and have not been criminally charged for a scheme to bail the company out.  However, federal investigators say […]

Ron DeSantis doesn’t understand capitalism

I see where failing GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is trying to salvage his campaign by pivoting to Marxism. He is calling for the state of Florida to investigate Belgium-based AB InBev on the basis of their recent Bud Light advertisements using a trans character. DeSantis seems to believe that AB InBev breached legal duties […]

July 15, 2023 Letters from an American

July 15, 2023, Letters from an American, Prof Heather Cox Richardson [Warning: the 13th paragraph of this piece, beginning “They did,” graphically describes racial violence.] July 16 marks the 160th anniversary of the most destructive riot in U.S. history. On July 13, 1863, certain Democrats in New York City rose up against the Lincoln administration. […]

The Solution Being the Fourteenth Amendment.

I subscribe to Letters from an American as written by Prof. Heather to which she has hundreds of commenters. Of course, I answer some when if comes to economics, manufacturing, and supply chain. The latter two being the source of my income for some 40-something years. Rising through the ranks most certainly gave me the […]