EconoSpeak

Trump’s latest excuse for withholding arms for the Ukrainian government to defend itself against Putin’s invitations so he can extract dirt against the Bidens is what again? Oh yea – he wants to root out corruption. REALLY? OK – start with this: KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump’s main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former...

Yes, Iraq.  It has not made front page headlines with so much else going on, but over the lat several days there has been an escalating series of protests against corruption in various parts of Iraq, but culminating yesterday in Baghdad with one that was met by soldiers firing openly upon the demonstarters with the result being about 104 dead and 6100 wounded.  The government of Adel Abdul Mahdi appears in danger of facing a no confidence motion and falling as it has lost the support of...

I think we all know AG Barr lied about the Mueller report but permit me to go back to this: The moment Attorney General William Barr laid eyes on a letter from special counsel Robert Mueller criticizing Barr's summary of his two-year investigation, he knew his goose was cooked. Mueller was creating a written record that wouldn't allow Barr to bastardize his concerns the way he had mischaracterized Mueller's report. “Bob, what’s with the letter? Why didn’t you just pick up the phone and call...

There is a special section containing 11 columns in today's (October 2, 2019) Washington Post on the first anniversary of the murder of its former columnist from Saudi Arabia, Kamal Khashoggi.  I shall quote from some of these columns.From "Khashoggi's horrifying final seconds" by David Ignatius:"The authorization to kill Khashoggi, if that became necessary, came in a second order, from [Saud] Qahtani." [a top aide to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman aka "MbS"]"What does Qahtani say...

While most US media  claims China (PRC) has the world's second largest economy, that is only true as measured in nominal terms.  Measured in real PPP terms, Chinese GDP surpassed that of the US in 2015 and contnes to move further ahead of it (and is likely to pass it in nominal terms very soon), despite gradual deceleration of the Chinese GDP growth rate.  Furthermore, PRC seems to be taking global leadership in crucial 5G technology.  In the last 70 years the PRC has gone from a poor nation...

I am referring to Kurt Volker: The president's lawyer Rudy Giuliani has revealed text messages of conversations between himself and senior officials at the State Department that he says show they endorsed his controversial dealings with Ukraine…During an appearance on Fox News show The Ingraham Angle last night, Giuliani revealed 15 text messages between himself, U.S. Special Representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker, and U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. When I first...

Lost in the shuffle this past week was one piece of good news for Trump: a tentative trad deal with Japan that he and Japan's PM Shinzoe Abe signed in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting.  While it is largely a favorable deal, it does not do too much and leaves the most difficult issue to be resolved by later negotiation, namely regarding the auto industry.Trade restrictions are lowered on a variety of agricultural goods, including pork, beef, wheat, corn, and some...

While I was preoccupied with other things, the US left settled on a pair of competing climate change narratives.  By the time I looked, the choice was down to just these two, and no other views could be considered.View #1, Green Abundance, is that combating climate change means unleashing the power of renewable energy.  Fortunately, according to this story, renewables are already the cheapest way to go, or if not quite, they will be once they are scaled up through a massive infusion of...

I have been watching Ken Burns's "Country Music"  series on PBS.  May not watch too much more of it as I am not that interested in more recent country music, although I like some of it.So the big story of this series is how much of supposedly "white music" is of African-American origin.  I had long been aware of how the banjo was of African origin, the core country instrument beside the "fiddle," aka "violin," which is of European origin.  But it shows that most of the important early...

This is going to be a tentative post because there is much that remains unclear.  What I am going to do is to make it clear that stories that are being told by US authorities and largely repeated by the MSM with little critical commentary is highly questionable.As it is, it looks like the economic impact of the knocking out of about 60 percent of Saudi oil processing capacity by an attack by 20 drones will not amount to too much.  The Saudis have now announced that they should have 70...