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

Please excuse the site problems….

12/30 The side bar ‘broke’ and I cannot access the code to fix it.  If you click on the title you want it seems to offer the correct format for individual posts.  I will work on it but am not a tech person.  I have notified MEV tech people, but it is the New Year […]

The Upcoming Liberation of Mexico (and Parts of Africa)

As many academics and community activists – in fact, anyone woke – will tell you, the US is a racist society steeped in the white supremacy of its majority population. White people are haters who keep ruining things. Which is why reading this story in the LA Times about people from Africa trying to cross […]

Income distribution and GDP, it matters

I should title this: Yeah, it is just like 1929 you freak’n see, hear, and speak no inequality monkeys. I have this pile of income data sorted out from Saez’s work (the GDP is BEA). My thoughts regarding our economy is that income inequality (or equality) matters. It matters so much, that it is the all […]

The end game is privatization…vouchers are one step

Jennifer Berkshire pointed Peter Greene to: The election of Donald J. Trump as president offers the best opportunity in decades to shrink the size and power of government and increase individual liberty.  So writes the Heartland Institute, a libertarian thinky tank, on a page devoted to all the Trumpian actions they approve of. This outfit was founded in […]

Five graphs for 2017:final update

Five graphs for 2017:final update At the beginning of the year, I identified 5 trends that bore particular watching, primarily as potentially setting the stage for a recession in 2018. Now that the year is ending, how did they turn out? #5 Gas Prices One potential pressure point on the economy was gas prices, which […]

Attention Republicans/Blue Dog Democrats: Tax cuts as stimulus work against your goal

  (Dan B. here…I think it is still appropriate as it is a lesson yet to be learned.) by Divorced one like Bush (2009) I think it’s time to reread the World Bank report on what creates wealth because it seems that the arguments against the stimulus are from a mind-set of very narrow thinking […]

K-12 Student Loan Industry

K-12 Student Loan Industry By MaryAnn Schlegel Ruegger  via AlterNet: The GOP tax bill’s inclusion of 529 plans for K-12 private tuition has been widely criticized as yet one more provision that aids the wealthy. That’s because only wealthy families have enough money on hand to sock away $10,000 a year toward each child’s K-12 private school tuition…. … […]

Evergreen: So Much Stranger than That

Evergreen: So Much Stranger than That I’m a professor at Evergreen State College, currently on leave.  Last year I lived through the events that were captured on videotape and brought the college a lot of unwanted publicity.  As a social scientist, long interested in organization theory and social movements, I found the experience grimly fascinating, […]

The Evolution of Ownership….get off my lawn.

By Steve Roth (originally published at Evonomics) You Don’t Own That! The Evolution of Ownership Get off my lawn.  (repost) In a recent post on the “evolution of money,” which concentrated heavily on the idea of (balance-sheet) assets, I promised to come back to the fundamental idea behind “assets”: ownership. Herewith, fulfilling that promise. There are a […]