EconoSpeak

I am currently attending the Southern Economic Association meetings in Fort Lauderdale, where the street facing the hotel was underwater during the most recent hurricane to pass through.Anyway, I saw a talk today that took me back to when I first learned about chaos theory, actuallly in the early 1970s before the word "chaos" was used for it. I learned about it and the butterfly effect, aka sensitive dependence on initial conditions, while working on a combined model of global climate change...

We are closing on the centennial of the beginning of decades having identities in the USA, the "Roaring 20s" of the 20th century.  It may be that this centennial will clearly mark the end of this odd phenomenon that we had been used to, but which was always a bit odd.  Why did this start and why might ibe ending?  I have a few thoughts on this.My theory oon why it started in the 1920s is that this was the first appearance of national news media in the form of radio, which was the first time...

Maybe. ry It looks the inflation ratei in Venezuela maxed  out in January at an annuualized rate of 192,000 % , whiich fell by September to 4,600% rate, still in hyperinflationary teritoryy, but  clearly coming down substantially.  I am not  a fan of this regime and never was, unlike some prominent economists saying nice t8ings about tueir economic performance, especially back in 2007, just berofe  the  world crash, when indeed their  numbers  looked prtty good.  But, not more recently...

Andrew Yang says, "Yes, Robots Are Stealing Your Job" in an op-ed at the New York Times. Paul Krugman thinks they're not and advises, "Democrats, Avoid the Robot Rabbit Hole." This is, of course, a classic case of asking the wrong question.The real question is: will robots burn down your house and kill your grandchildren? Let's imagine that all those self-driving trucks and the computers needed to guide them will run on electricity generated by wind turbines and solar panels. Will the robots...

As I listened to the testimony of Bill Taylor and George Kent, I was also reading up on some South African transfer pricing case involving iron ore: Kumba Iron Ore will pay less than half of the tax bill it received from the SA Revenue Service (Sars) last year following audits of its export marketing practices during the commodities boom. The settlement of R2.5bn significantly overshot the R1.5bn Kumba had set aside as a contingent liability. It is, however, a fraction of the taxes,...

Aside from the headline news about a July 26 phone call, I learned four big things from the impeachment inquiry hearing this morning. First, the specific corruption surrounding Burisma Holidings had to do with self dealing by company founder Mykola Vladislavovich Zlochevsky -- issuing oil and gas licences to his own company when he was Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources. In other words, Zlochevsky did exactly what Donald J. Trump attempted to do with his Doral Golf Club and the G7...

And not only that, presumably they are paying money to put them on, so who is getting that money?  I am not, although it may not amount to much.  Hey, I see there  are not nearly as many as on Angry Bear, where I find them to be obnoxiously in one's face, and they are pretty low key.  But, personally, I would rarther not have them and I sure as hell was never asked by anybody if I did want them.This is also a message to those who may think I should be getting rid of weird stuff showing up in...

Within the last week or so there seems to have been an explosion of yattering over "ok boomer." Over the last few years in various parts of the internet there was a self-righteous meme pushing "gas all boomers."  Yeah. This never made it to the MSM, I suspect  because it was just too extreme for the MSM to publicize.  But now we have the MSM allover this milder "ok boomer" meme, now a big deal.  I think I have an original view of this,that the "gas all boomers"  is an idealistic millennial...

Greg Mankiw has always been a Never Trumper: I just came back from city hall, where I switched my voter registration from Republican to unenrolled (aka independent). Two reasons: First, the Republican Party has largely become the Party of Trump. Too many Republicans in Congress are willing, in the interest of protecting their jobs, to overlook Trump's misdeeds (just as too many Democrats were for Clinton during his impeachment). I have no interest in associating myself with that behavior....

Finally after numerous delays, the potentially largest Initial Public Offering (IPO) of stock has finally become for fully state-owned ARAMCO in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).  MOst of the delays had involved an unwillingness by the Saudi royal family to publicize financial and other factual details about the company, although issuing an IPO for 5 percent of the company was a part of the Vision 2030 plan of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). As it is, for the time being the IPO is...