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

Japan stands up to Trump

My prediction is that the “negotiations” will be over what kind of fig leaf Japan will allow in return for abject Trump Administration capitulation: “Japan on Tuesday clarified its stance on U.S. tariffs, saying it wants all new levies put into place by the administration of President Donald Trump completely removed, confirming a hard-line position […]

Have any impacts from Tariff-palooza! shown up in hard data yet?

 – by New Deal democrat A few days ago, Prof. Menzie Chinn at Econbrowser posted the below graphs comparing the time that hard vs. soft data reacted to economic shocks: As you know, I have been looking at hard “high frequency” data to see if any of the effects of Tariff-palooza! have shown up yet. And […]

China POM Tariffs

Another “tit for tat” situation between China and the US. Polyoxymethylene (POM), is better known as acetal, polyacetal, and polyformaldehyde It is an engineering thermoplastic used in precision parts requiring high stiffness, low friction, and excellent dimensional stability. To better explain . . . the applications of polyacetals include moving parts in appliances and machines (gears, […]

Book Review and Analysis: “Seeing Like a State”

David Zetland, “The one-handed economist “Sometimes you just want the answer” Review: “Seeing Like a State,” The one-handed economist I read this 1998 book by James C. Scott (1936-2024) while I was in graduate school (maybe 20 years ago). I loved it then and — after re-reading it recently — I love it now. This is one of my top […]

A little good news

“The headline election was Romania’s presidential vote, with liberal Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan coming out the winner ahead of nationalist George Simion.” *snip* “Poland was also holding a presidential election, and Polish TV’s exit poll indicated that Warsaw’s liberal Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski received 30.8%, while national-conservative historian Karol Nawrocki won 29.1% of the vote.” “The […]

In Q1, bank conditions for loans appear to have darkened

 – by New Deal democrat Until Thursday we are once again in a data drought this week. In the meantime, there are a few points I want to address, including the very important Moody’s downgrade of US debt. But there was one important piece of data that came out last week that I didn’t discuss yet: […]

What Trump Wants From Tariffs … and What the U.S. Might Get Instead

Commentary from April which still has some relevance as the Tariffs still exist. Trump did decrease them but we will still suffer issues of higher pricing. The administration hopes to bring back manufacturing and reduce trade deficits. But renegotiating trade may damage global trust in the U.S. What Trump Wants From Tariffs … and What […]

23andMe resurrected

For most people, 23andMe is synonymous with direct-to-consumer genomics. It isn’t DNA sequencing, it’s microarrays that are capable of detecting many annotated variants. As with all direct-to-consumer genomics, the cost to consumers was supposed to be subsidized by the aftermarket for genetic information. In the event, 23andMe declared bankruptcy recently, and there was a question […]

Train Drain

I know of Phillip Longman more so from his authoring a couple books. One called “The Best Care Anywhere” about the Veterans Administration. This is an article about deregulation and what happens when private equity takes over. It is a good read. Deregulation and private equity have gutted the U.S. freight rail system—and with it, […]