I’ve had several Iranian colleagues throughout my faculty career. Unsurprisingly, none were anti-American. Here’s an interview with Juan Cole and Mojtaba Mahdavi, two Middle East experts, on the current events in Iran. They discuss the politics in Iran and among the Iranian diaspora. Both Cole and Mahdavi point to the Netanyahu ambition of hegemony in […]

Guest Commentary: J.P. McJefferson, “The breakdown turned a strategic advantage into public confusion . . . “ In mid-February, Democrats held a clear advantage on the issue of ICE and Border Patrol (CBP) reforms within the Department of Homeland Security. Following high-profile incidents and protests in Minneapolis, public attention was sharply focused on concerns surrounding […]

I read this piece at Health Affairs. Liked it, thought I could shrink it down with a bit of a rewrite, failed on the latter. It is a 10 minute easy read on health care, deductibles, and why the ACA is in trouble . . . think deductibles. They do not solve the use of […]

Review: “Breakneck” – The one-handed economist Dan Wang is a trenchant observer of the US and China. He was born in China but raised in Canada. He’s worked in the US and China as an adult, and he compares the culture of the two in this 2025 book. Wang’s big point is that US culture is […]

Sorry for the length of this piece. Trump will be heading back to SCOTUS with another proposal granting him unlimited authority. He really knows no bounds for the presidency when it comes to deciding outside of Congress. The Presidency proposes and Congress taxes, appropriates, budgets, and spends when it comes to the economy. Trump prefers […]

I am always curious about what happens in other countries when there is an oil shortage. In this case it is fuel for cabs to cart westerners and Europeans around. For them, this is serious. No fuel, potentially no income from westerners transporting them. In Bangkok, Thais make a living shuffling westerners around. We have […]

As reported at Common Dreams by Jake Johnson, “The Pentagon reportedly wants Congress to approve more than $200 billion in supplemental funding for US President Donald Trump’s unauthorized and deeply unpopular war on Iran as the administration weighs deploying thousands of additional troops to the Middle East, signaling a drawn-out conflict and a possible ground invasion.” AB: […]

– by New Deal democrat This week, in addition to my usual look at jobless claims, especially in view of my post earlier this week breaking down the components of aggregate nonsupervisory payrolls,  I want to compare them with several other indicators of increased joblessness in terms of their expansion and pre-recession dynamics.  First, let’s look […]

What Andrew Sprung is discussing is the impact of Republicans and Trumps’ change to the funding for ACA healthcare. To explain premium tax credit improvements expired at the end of 2025, causing 2026 premiums to spike for all marketplace enrollees, whether or not they receive premium tax credits. The expiration of the enhanced tax subsidies […]

If the Strait stays closed, look out above. – Paul Krugman March 13, 2026 Source: FRED I did not have time yesterday to do a full post for today, but wanted to say something I suspect many economists are thinking, but which I haven’t seen clearly expressed: the world economy’s very robustness to oil price […]