EconoSpeak

That is what Robert J. Samuelson did in yesterday's Washington Post (I have not picked on him for awhile, time to gt back at it).  The new UN report on global climate change has brought from him a giant shrug of the shoulders along the lines of, so what?  He makes three arguments.The first is that we do not have the technology to do anything.  Only 4% of total energy is coming from renewables he says, by which he means solar and wind. But there is also geothermal, hydro, and nuclear.  They...

Donald Trump appears to be reluctant to investigate the murder of Jamal Khashoggi because of an alleged trade deal? Donald Trump has said US investigators are looking into how Jamal Khashoggi vanished at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, but made clear that whatever the outcome, the US would not forgo lucrative arms deals with Riyadh. The president’s announcement raised concerns of a cover-up of evidence implicating Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in plans to...

The political economy of the working class is pluralist.The political economy of the working class is pragmatic.The political economy of the working class is critical.Karl Marx chronicled and contributed to the political economy of the working class. He did not invent, conclude or supersede it. In  his Inaugural Address to the International Working Men’s Association, Marx celebrated the first victory of the political economy of the working class, the passage, in 1847, of the Ten Hours'...

I read the IPCC summary for policy makers so you don't have to. You may have heard that CO2 emissions have to fall by 45% by 2030 to avoid the possibility of overshooting 1.5°C global warming. Actually emissions must decline by 45% from 2010 levels, which are already substantially lower than 2018 levels. The strategies for reducing emissions by that amount are quite complex and depend on hundreds of governments adopting scores of policies that they have no intention of adopting.So, burn in...

Most of the commentary today on the decision to award Nobel prizes in economics to William Nordhaus and Paul Romer has focused on the recipients.  I want to talk about the nonrecipient whose nonprize is perhaps the most important statement by the Riksbank, the Swedish central bank that decides who should be recognized each year for their work in economics “in memory of Alfred Nobel”.Nordhaus was widely expected to be a winner for his work on the economics of climate change.  For decades he...

I listened very carefully to Senator Collins as she detailed her excuses for letting Brett Kavanaugh become a Supreme Court Justice. Two aspects of her speech were particularly absurd and kind of appalling. Her claims that Kavanaugh is a moderate akin to Justice Stevens were beyond absurd. The most appalling aspect of her speech was how she dismissed the claims that Kavanaugh sexually abused women in high school and/or college: Some of the allegations levied against Judge Kavanaugh...

For several years now we have all grown accustomed to the fact that President Trump likes to go to rallies of his supporters where they relentlessly chant the subject head of this post.  It has always referred to his opponent in the presidential election of 2016, the person who got about 3 million more votes than he did, even as he managed to win in the determining electoral college.  While I recognize that Hillary Clinton has many flaws, she has been investigated more times than I can count...

At the last minute last night the US and Canada cut a deal, so now Canada is on on the deal to change NAFTA to USMCA.  I think the name change is the biggest part of it, even though Trump still claims that NAFTA was "the worst trade deal ever" and the new deal makes relatively minor changes in it, especially if one considers what would have been the case if the US had actually joined the TPP, as most of the environmental, labor, and intellectual property parts of the new deal (the...

In an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN's State of the Union, Kellyanne Conway said, "I’m a victim of sexual assault, I don’t expect Judge Kavanaugh or Jake Tapper or Jeff Flake or anybody to be held responsible for that. You have to be accountable for your own conduct." I believe Conway because she spoke about this before, in October 2016, in an interview with Chris Matthews, right after the Access Hollywood tape of Donald Trump's "locker room talk" came out. KELLYANNE CONWAY: I would...

Yes, I am weighing in on this overly hyped story on the problematic proposal by President Trump to appoint Brett Kavanaugh to the SCOTUS.  Obviously the main reason why BK will end up not on the court is all his lying about his past sex and drinking behavior, ironically some of which he may not remember, although claiming he does remember all his past may lead to him convicted of perjury.For poor Brett Kavanaugh, his personal tragedy is that Trump nominated him for SCOTUS.  If DJT had not...