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

Voting 2026

Just Some thoughts . . . NPR: “The latest executive order, issued March 31, calls for the Department of Homeland Security to work with the Social Security Administration to create lists of adult U.S. citizens in each state, and to send those lists to state election officials. It also calls for the U.S. Postal Service — […]

Will Cuba be Venezuela 2.0?

Like Lenin in Russia and Mao in China, Castro replaced a corrupt government when he came to power. Like Lenin and Mao, Castro replaced one form of totalitarianism with another. Unlike communism in the USSR and China, communism in Cuba has proven durable. Decades of US trade sanctions, subversion and assassination plots failed to dislodge […]

“Mr. Jefferson’s Lost Cause”: a book review

I just finished reading “Mr. Jefferson’s Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase” by Roger G. Kennedy. Most of the histories I’ve read have either taught me about events I hadn’t formed any prior impressions about or else confirmed and colored out my superficial understanding of those events. This book was different for […]

An exception to the rule? Maybe Housing ISN’T the Business Cycle

Twenty years ago, Professor Edward Leamer gave an important presentation at the Fed’s Jackson Hole meeting entitled “Housing IS the Business Cycle.” The current environment is putting that hypothesis to a very severe test. Because by all accounts housing has deteriorated  sufficiently that a recession should already have begun months ago. In fact, the current […]

Remembering Milton Friedman

Mike Brock has a long piece up at his substack on Milton Friedman. For the tl;dr crowd, here’s the money quote: “The honest historical record is that Friedman made substantive contributions that the contemporary American left has absorbed without recognizing and that the contemporary American right has invoked without honoring. Both receptions are defective. The […]