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

“Corruptible,” the essential features of corrupt “leaders”

Book review of “Corruptible” as authored by Brian Klaas and reviewed by The one-handed economist, David Zetland on his blog. Brian Klaas published this book in late 2021, which was too early to discuss Putin’s second invasion of Ukraine but not too late to discuss Trump’s first term — let alone his first day. Those oversights do not […]

New Deal democrat’s Weekly Indicators July 15 – 19 2024

 – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. While several of the monthly updates I’ve discussed here in the past week have tiptoed in the direction of yellow caution flags, that’s not apparent at all in the high frequency data that is updated every week, much of which comes from […]

Why do we need carbon capture?

Yesterday, I posted about geoengineering the oceans as a promising form of carbon capture. But why do we need carbon capture at all? Can’t we just conserve our way out of global warming? No. Here are a couple of reasons why the *only* way to avert climate disaster is to start removing carbon from the […]

Retail Shoplifting

I believe I have seen one boy walk out of a Frys with something in his arms. He did not pass through the cashier line but waited for the gates to open to the store and walked through the opposite way. Did the need whatever he had? I don’t know. The only thing this false […]

Global Tech Outage

Angry Bear (I) found this in my in box this Friday morning. Not much of a scoop now as the world knows about the issue. Let’s talk about why this tech outage occurred. There does not appear to be a backup for failure of systems when one of significance fails. This baffles me as we […]

Manafort Returns and Walks the Floor of the Republican National Convention

If you have not been watching, Manafort returns to Trump’s side. Forty-seven months in prison was too short for Manafort. And Trump reveals his ways by having him there. Convicted criminals’ side by side. And Democrats are in disarray over Biden or . . . “July 18, 2024,” Walking the floor of the Republican National […]

Geoengineering and the global climate crisis

Global heating continues unabated. While decarbonizing our energy sources is certainly important, it is too late to prevent global disaster. Coastal flooding, desertification, wildfires will continue to increase, driving vulnerable populations to migrate and igniting resource wars for fresh water and arable land. It’s already driving migration and violence in the Middle East and Central […]