Is David Ignatius Falling For Saudi Propaganda? Washington Post columnist and occasional novelist and diplomat, David Ignatius, is one of the best informed and wisest of commentators on Middle East affairs. Thus it is with concern that in yesterday’s Washington Post in a column titled, “A new chance for Middle East peace?” he seems to […]
The Military Times reports: A handful of Pentagon nominees will be waiting for Senate confirmation when the upper chamber returns in September from its summer recess, but the administration still has dozens of Defense Department positions to fill. Leaving State Department vacancies aside, I thought the Trump readiness rhetoric applied to DOD…not so much I […]
I met Cathy in Cambridge when she spoke at MIT a few years ago. This is re-posted from Naked Capitalism. Cathy’s whole TED Talk can be watched after the fold. Data Scientist Cathy O’Neil: “Algorithms Are Opinions Embedded in Code” Cathy O’Neil has a PhD in mathematics from Harvard and is the author of the […]
by New Deal Democrat Free Trade, the Primrose Path, and the Blinkered Blindness of macroeconomists Here’s what I learned today: the origin of the phrase “being led down the primrose path.” It turns out that in medieval times, one meaning of the word “primrose” was the “prime,” or first or loveliest, rose. Thus taking the […]
Plan the time to take a deep breath and look at Steven Harper’s Interactive Timeline: Everything We Know About Russia and President Trump at Moyers and Company. When it comes to Donald Trump, his campaign and their dealings with Russia past and present, sometimes it’s hard to keep track of all the players without a […]
by New Deal Democrat Industrial production: once again, the hard data fails to confirm the sof … ofertheluvofgaud This morning’s report on industrial production confirms that the economy remains on autopilot, and that’s a good thing. Overall production increased again, and the trend of rising production since spring of last year is clear: When we […]
Why Is The Fed Raising Interest Rates As Fast As It Is? I have a theory that at least some people at the Fed are supporting interest rate increases not because they are worried about incipient inflation that must be nipped in the bud in advance under a regime of inflation targeting, but because they […]
Real retail sales disappoints . . . the Doomers This morning’s report on July retail sales once again belies the claim that “hard data” and “soft data” are divergent.. Not only did July come in at a strong +0.6% (+0.5% ex-autos), but June was revised up as well. Given basically non-existent inflation, this means that […]
by Joseph Joyce Current Account Deficits and Safe Assets The International Monetary Fund has issued its External Sector Report for 2017, and among its key findings: “Global current account imbalances were broadly unchanged in 2016…” The U,S. continues to record the largest deficit, $451.7 billion, which is equal in value to 2.4% of U.S. GDP. […]
“The Changing of the Guard:” the prescient 1980 book that foretold neoliberalism About a month ago I read the synopsis of an interview in which Thomas Frank described the near evisceration of the Democratic Party. Here’s his simple version: “[T]he Democrats have, what happened is that some years ago they decided they didn’t want to […]