Tag Archives: politics

“For Indigenous Peoples’ Day: on the centrality of mass migrations to human history“  – by New Deal democrat I just finished reading Susan Wise Bauer’s “The History of the Ancient World,” which in a little under 800 pages summarizes an almost endless string of kings and battles from the earliest written records kept by the Sumerians around 3000 BC through the accession of Constantine as Roman Emperor in 306 AD.  It is timely to consider it...

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...

Dale Coberly; USA Today Report of Biden Speech not as bad as it might have been. It still amounts to a lie by Misdirection. On September 27, USA TODAY published an article which AB suggested I review. “Biden vows to save Social Security and Medicare in face of shortfalls, but offers few details,” Maureen Groppe, USA Today It has been said that looking at the face of the devil is one of the chief torments of hell. That is the way I feel when I...

Weekly Indicators for October 3 – 7 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. This week’s headline was easy, because OPEC’s (and in particular Russia and Saudi Arabia’s) geopolitical decision – aimed directly at the November elections in the US as well as Western support for Ukraine –  to cut back production has already caused gas and oil prices to increase sharply. As usual, clicking over...

An Improvement In China’s Human Rights Record In XinJiang?, Econospeak by Barkley Rosser  On October 5, 2022, the Washington Post published a front section story, “Uyghyr crackdown eases, but Xinjiang;s scars endure,” by Eva Dou and Kate Cadell. The article documents the ongoing human rights problems and a lack of transparency in Xinjiang province in China, including ongoing use of forced labor in prisons in industrial parks, in the wake of...

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...

This “Letter from an American” author Prof. Heather has a different spin to it. Prof. Heather is discussing OPEC and the impact it is going to have on the US as well as other counties not having the wealth we have. One thing I did not know is, Russia is the Vice-Chair of OPEC. Or Putin has his input to OPEC. Leading up to the MBS ‘s decision to cut oil production, the market was stabilizing and prices were dropping. “October 5, 2022,” Letters...

Putin Supporters In US Becoming Desperate  Latest reports have after Putin annexed four oblasts in Ukraine the Ukrainian military making numerous gains in several of those and simply on a major roll that seems very unlikely to be stopped or even slowed down all that much, short of Putin using nuclear weapons. First Lyman was taken, now the last town the Russians held in Kharkiv oblast was taken. Ukrainian troops appear to be closing fast on both...