Tag Archives: Hot Topics

By adolescence, Bill Barr, Sam Alito, Stephen Miller, …, …, and lord knows how many other young boys, knew that they saw things somewhat differently than most. More, they felt that they alone knew how these things should be. Many of this grouping went on to graduate from some of our very best universities. Neither education nor anything else that happened in their lives seems to have altered their way of seeing these things somewhat differently than...

Degenerate Autocrats, Econospeak by Barkley Rosser  Yesterday, I had Konstantin Sonin present a seminar at JMU, “The Degenerate Autocrat: Origins and Consequences of the Russia-Ukraine War.” Sonin is a former Vice-Rector of the Higher Economic School in Moscow who left suddenly in March due to his critical remarks about the regime. He has since been fired from the faculty there. Sonin is a Dewey Distinguished Service Professor at the Harris...

As we hear how poorly the economy has been doing, I thought I might review Biden’s first year in office using six graphs from CEPR. I only wish the economy was this poor in 2008 when I forced to seek jobs out of state and work out of state for four years. I was good on making the swoop home to my wife the same as I did coming home from overseas duty. “Assessing the First Year of Biden, in Graphs” is what CEPR is calling its collection of articles...

The US military has ideas about how Taiwan can protect itself from a possible Chinese invasion (and therefore deter that invasion) I think they are very good ideas. I think that the proposed program would markedly reduce the threat of a PRC invasion of Taiwan, which is the most alarming threat currently faced by the US and its allies (including the allied country Taiwan, which the US does not recognize). I ask why is this program which is well...

September jobs report: a very positive report within a framework of continued deceleration As I have written many, many times, consumption leads employment; and the near stagnation in real sales and spending signaled that we should expect weaker monthly employment reports, with both fewer new jobs and a higher unemployment rate. In September, the former happened; the latter did not. The three month average in employment gains since February...

Jobless claims rise; the gas price low is probably ending  – by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims may have ended their recent downtrend. Initial claims rose 19,000 to 219,000 from last week’s 5 month low. The 4 week average rose 250 from its 4 month low to 206,500. Continuing claims, which lag somewhat, increased 15,000 to 1,361,000: The downtrend of the past 2 months was almost certainly a positive side-effect of lower gas prices....

One Handed Economist David Zetland reviews a review by The Economist of the book Superabundance. I admit I did not read the book or even scan it. I will do so later when I have some time to do so. The subtitle kind of gives it away as it promotes (“The Story of) Population Growth, Innovation and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet.” In the US there is a lot of noise about legal immigrants coming to the US. Our replacement rate has...

September manufacturing new orders and August construction spending both turn down  – by New Deal democrat As usual, we begin another month and another quarter with important manufacturing and construction data. The ISM manufacturing index has a very long and reliable history. Going back almost 75 years, the new orders index has always fallen below 50 within 6 months before a recession, and in three cases did not actually cross the line...

As you can see bullet spewing weapons takes the lead this week. There are a lot of articles as taken from JAMA Network. which also has more and unlisted here. You are probably also wondering why the term “bullet spewing weapons” verbiage. There was always a discussion on semi-automatic, automatic, revolvers, etc. So, I cut to the chase. We are talking about weapons which spew bullets. Hence the name. Everything else is a mixture of various topics...

This is kind of an interesting story. It shows how crazy some of us and it also shows a presence in our military too. Active or reservist military are not supposed to be doing this. Here we have an off-duty officer of the Massachusetts Army National Guard following a busload of senior citizens in a dangerous manner . . . tailgating. He then confronts them when they reach their hotel. “An off-duty Massachusetts National Guard Lt. Colonel...