by Joseph Joyce The IMF and the Coronavirus A global threat such as the coronavirus should be met with a global response. National governments, however, have generally not coordinated their efforts, with the exception of those that belong to the European Union, and even there the distribution of vaccines has not gone smoothly. International agencies, on […]

Impeachment: What’s the Message? The mantra of the moment is that impeachment is not a trial and shouldn’t be governed by the same rules that apply to a court of law.  True, but that means it’s really a political event, where the verdict matters less than the message. What’s coming through the media reporting is […]

Today Tyler Cowen posted this: Remember the proposals for a $15 federal minimum wage? Employment would be reduced by 1.4 million workers, or 0.9 percent, according to CBO’s average estimate… That is from the new CBO report. Here is a bit more context: In an average week in 2025, the year when the minimum wage would […]

Pushing Back For Democracy Around The World  Given the massive impetus the presidency of Donald Trump gave to authoritarian and anti-democratic forces around the world, it is worth seeing that his defeat in a democratic election, despite his efforts to illegally overturn it, seems to have been followed by some outbursts of pro-democratic demonstrations in […]

Boston College History Professor Heather Cox Richardson continues her dialogue “Letters from an American” with coverage of events leading up to the Senate trial of a former president and the passage of a much needed economic rescue of the nation’s citizens caught up in an epidemic. “Historians are fond of saying that the past doesn’t […]

Kevin Quinn at Econospeak has an interesting conversation on how the Biden proposed stimulus will play out. “Summers and Ricardo”

James Buchanan, one of the most influential free-market conservatives of the past half century, chastised liberals (progressives) for being romantic about politics.  His work on Public Choice Theory urged us to look at “politics without romance”. Buchanan was right.  Being overly romantic about politics can lead to serious error, but this error is by no […]

Larry Summers has responded to his critics. My first thought is, yes he is still really smart. Also Olivier Blanchard also thinks the Covid Relief bill is too generous, and, in particular objects to the $1400 for most Americans. Note that Blanchard is the author of the main citation in my critique of Summers (although […]

Just in case you forgot what occurred a month ago yesterday. The Capitol under attack.