EconoSpeak

As most regular readers here know, I have long and old connections to the state of Wisconsin, having gone to high school, undergraduate and graduate school, as well as having family members there since then, with me visiting on a regular basis.  When I first moved there back in 1963, the atate had the reputation not only as a Progressive stronghold, the home of "Fighting Bob" LaFollette as well as the location of Ripon, where in 1854 the Republican Party was founded in its days as the...

At the CEPR blog, Beat the Press, Dean Baker and Jason Hickel are debating degrowth. Dean makes the excellent point that "claims about growth" from oil companies and politicians who oppose policies to restrict greenhouse gas emissions, "are just window dressing." I also agree, however, with the first comment in response to Dean's post that his point about window dressing could be taken much further.I would add that economic growth is window dressing for what used to be referred to much more...

I think this is behind the apparently bipartisan and intense outpouring of mourning over the death of 94 year old George H.W. Bush, indeed with some of this even being for the broader post-World War II era in which the US predominated over the world.  Bush was president when the long Cold War with the former Soviet Union came to its end with the victory of the US and the breaking up of the USSR, as well as being the last president to have been a veteran of WW II, and a highly decorated one...

So said Donald Trump on several occasions in connection with possibly appointing her as Fed Chair, according to an article in today's Washington Post by Philip Rucker, John Dawsey, and Damian Paletta.  This article, along with several others, mostly covered the 20 minute interview these three had with Trump in the Oval Office.  Most of the news was was expected: on MbS still "maybe he did and maybe he didn't" on his role in the Khashoggi murder; "i don't see it" regarding evidence of a human...

We have already seen the spectacle of Trump simply dismissing the reported CIA conclusion that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) ordered the gruesome murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi ("Maybe he did, maybe he didn't")  He has put forward silly excuses for this: low oil prices! (nonexistent) hundreds of billions of dollars of arms deals!  Key to the anti-Iranian coalition!  Oh, and also supposedly key to Israeli-Palestinian peace, this last especially...

The world according to Trump -- notice a trend here?Reporter: "Who should be held accountable?" [for Jamal Khashoggi's murder]Trump: "Maybe the world should be held accountable because the world is a vicious place. The world is a very, very vicious place." -- November 22, 2018."The world is a vicious and brutal place. We think we're civilized. In truth, it's a cruel world and people are ruthless. They act nice to your face, but underneath they're out to kill you." Think Big and Kick Ass in...

I do not know how widely it is still taught or how, but when I was in elementary school in Ithaca, New York, I was taught about the "First Thanksgiving," an event that happened in October, 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, following a good harvest after the pilgrim colony, founded in 1620, had a hard year that saw half their population die (about 50 people, mostly of starvation).  It was a joint feast of the pilgrims with neighboring native Indians of the Pokenok tribe of the larger Wampanoag...

Lots of bad op-ed stuff gets published in the New York Times and other mass circulation outlets, so I usually give it a pass, but today’s attack on free higher education by David Leonhardt is about my day job, so I have to make an exception.  He repeats the utterly bs line that, since most college students are from the upper half of the income spectrum, using public funds to pay their way is regressive.No, no no!First, why is the college student population so skewed to the higher brackets? ...

According to the top stories in both the New York Times and Washington Post this morning, somebody in the CIA has leaked that Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.  Of course no sensible observer is remotely surprised, but the Trump administration had been working mightily to deny this obvious fact, with reports surfacing that they were plotting to send Turkish cleric Gulen to Turkey as authoritarian President Erdogan has long been demanding...

On many Mondays I indulge in taking Robert J. Samuelson to task after his regular Washington Post column of the day.  Today he was almost right, or if you prefer, even mostly right.  This one was titled "It's Not the Economy, Stupid" about the outcome of the midterm election, as well as a delayed comment on the 2016 presidential election (although, of course, HRC did win the popular vote by three million popular votes, if not the electoral college).  His main argument is that in both of...