EconoSpeak

 I have just read an obituary in today's Washington Post of Pat Michaels, who died a week ago of unreported causes at age 72. He was long identified as one of the most influential "climate skeptics" in terms of policy, playing an important role in blocking the US from joining the Kyoto Accords in the 1990s and long a prominent figure in media debates on outlets such as the old "Crossfire" show, where his quick wit and ability to come up with sharp lines and stabs was notorious. He once...

 While recovering from a bout of Covid-19 (getting there), I have found myself listening to a lot of music by Soviet/Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovich, mostly some of his 15 symphonies, which covr quite a range of styles from his first in 1926 to his last in 1971. I first heard Shostakovich 60 years ago in a junior high school music class when we were shown a film of a performance by the Leningrad Orchestra of his 1942 Leningrad Symphony No, 7's first movement, dramatic and military...

 Peter Dorman had a post on this topic here a while back.  The inflation fallacy says that inflation doesn't affect real income, since aggregate nominal income increases at the same rate as prices. But today you can't shake a stick without hitting someone, economist or lay-person alike,  talking about the harm that the current inflation is doing to real income.So: what is going on?  If the inflation fallacy is correct then a fall in real wages  would imply an increase in real non-labor...

 Yes, I posted on this awhile ago, but at that time it was a maybe. Now he is in the air on his way, although, of course, to Israel and the West Bank first, where I have no complaint or comment much.So, basically what I said earlier largely holds, that this is not a trip with much good likely to come out of it. Main "goods"?: affirmation of in-place cease-fire in awful war in Yemen, a diplomatic triumph of the Biden admin, but I doubt much improvement on that situation happening from this...

 Post your entries in the comments. Sandwichman WILL JUDGE THEM.

 I have finished reading to my two younger grandsons the two Alice books by Lewis Carroll. I read the edition with commentary by the late mathematician, Martin Gardner, who used to write for Scientific American. I also just listened to Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit," which is pretty bloody sharp, but which draws on both of the Alice books. While most attention is on the first one, "Wonderland," which got made into a not bad cartoon by Disney, the deep one is the second one, "Through the...

At Springfield, Illinois, July 17, 1858Now, as to the Dred Scott decision; for upon that he [Douglas] makes his last point at me. He boldly takes ground in favor of that decision.This is one-half the onslaught, and one-third of the entire plan of the campaign. I am opposed to that decision in a certain sense, but not in the sense which he puts on it. I say that in so far as it decided in favor of Dred Scott’s master and against Dred Scott and his family, I do not propose to disturb or resist...

 Vladimir who? I appreciate that most readers have never heard of this individual. But this is the sign of a major new shift in the situation in Russia. To make clear why this is important: until quite recently Vladimir Mau was the top economic advisor of V.V. Putin. Just prior to his arrest, he has just been reelected to the Board of Gazprom, the most important state-owned company in Russia. Apparently his arrest is part of a broader wave of arrests of prominent Russians who have apparently...

 Maybe.It is now reported that "talks are to resume," although most observers are not optimistic. But then today there is a report of a shakeup in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards hierarchy who seem to control the most serious of these things. Head of their intel, Taeb, has been removed, although it is unclear what this will lead to, despite noises he was too hardline and maybe a deal can be cut with these renewed talks.Barkley Rosser