‘I don’t have to show you any stinking badges.’ Perusing Palgrave’s Dictionary of Political Economy from 1894 alerted me to the odd interaction of a pair of distinctions. The first distinction was between the study of “what is” and “what ought to be.” The second distinction was between “economic science” (or “economics”) and “political economy.” Economic science presumably […]

In the Washington Post Abby Phillips wrotes “Clinton isn’t doing better than previous Democrats with Latinos — even against Trump” While Greg Sargent wrote “If this new poll is right, Trump is absolutely shredding the GOP brand with Latinos” Both are horse race journalism, but Sargent is looking at the horses and Phillips is talking […]

Why am do I expect you to waste your time reading a post with such a silly title. Obviously, while opinions on Clinton’s honesty differ, everyone knows that Donald Trump is a pathological liar and a crook. Oh Mr straw blog reader “everyone” eh ? Let’s ask Quinnipiac “American likely voters say 53 – 42 […]

Robert Waldmann did something this morning that I’d planned to do: He posted an in-depth post about the NYT’s awesome article in yesterday’s paper titled “From Small Town to Prison,” by Josh Keller and Adam Pearce. Robert makes a critical point about the fiscal cause of the phenomenon that the Times article reports on, and […]

Internet petitions of this sort are helping and saving many, many abused animals.  What I don’t understand about this situation is why it’s been allowed to exist for well more than a decade after it was publicly known about. The petition is by IAnimal South Coast Pet Rescue and Education, Inc.

With hard work, using publicly available data, not relying on off the record access to sources, Josh Keller and Adam Pearce have written an excellent important article which notes that from 2006 to 2013 the rate of new admissions to prison from high and medium population counties has sharply declined, but the rate of admission […]

by Linda Beale More on Trump’s Tax Returns The  New York Times Op-Ed by Mitchel Zuckoff (a journalism prof at Boston University), titled “Why We Ask to See Tax Returns” (Aug. 6, 2016), at A19, goes beyond my list of reasons taxpaying voters may learn items of interest from reviewing presidential candidates’ tax returns.  Looking […]

by Mike Kimel A Tale of Two Roman Emperors It has been about 1,975 years since the death of the Roman emperor Caligula, but his name is still associated with horrors. If contemporary accounts are within a mile of being reliable, he was an insane megalomaniac with delusions of divinity. He was also into large […]

I should like to show that Jonathan Portes most probably did not cause Brexit. To do so, however, I first must examine the plausibility of the case that his actions and words did indeed provoke a decisive margin for the Leave vote in the EU referendum last June. Portes is Principal Research Fellow, formerly Director, […]