Tom Walker or Sandwichman (many of us know him as) has a series of articles I am going to post to Angry Bear. Tom spends much of his time discussing Labor and its value to capital or what I would call manufacturing. Without Labor input there would be no value. Leisure to Attend to Our Spiritual Business (updated to include link to published article) by Tom Walker (Sandwichman) ABSTRACT (PDF AVAILABLE HERE)...
Read More »How can getting food into Gaza be up for debate?
From the NYT: After Hamas led a deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, Israeli officials declared a siege of Gaza, and they have severely restricted the entry of humanitarian aid, saying they do not want it to help Hamas. From October to early May, the daily number of aid trucks entering the territory through the two main crossing points in southern Gaza dropped by around 75 percent, according to U.N. data, and reports of hunger and malnourishment...
Read More »Five Men at Atomic Ground Zero
This popped up. What not to do on a sunny day in the Nevada desert. The F-89 Fighter Fired ‘Mini’ Nuclear Bomb Rockets to Make Russia Freak, msn.com A new design F-89J flying overhead was carrying a different and altogether deadlier payload. An approximate three-meter-long rocket with a 1.5 kiloton nuclear W25 nuclear warhead in its tip. The rocket was designated MB-1 Genie, later renamed the AIR-2A, and popularly nicknamed the “Ding Dong.”...
Read More »Drone Swarms
Drones are changing warfare. They are cheap and deadly. I am thinking about their use in stopping a marine invasion. The reason is that I am concerned that it is not clear enough to Xi JinPing that an invasion of Taiwan would be a huge error. The problem with anti-ship drones is that they are attacking a target with anti-aircraft defences and one which can survive some explosions. I think this means that a very large number of drones must...
Read More »Ten Fundamental Economic (Mis)understandings
It’s all about the words . . . by Steve Roth Originally Published at Wealth Economics This article was first published on Cameron Murray’s great Fresh Economic Thinking. It’s slightly revised here. Maybe I’m just dense, but when I started studying economics roughly twenty years ago, I immediately ran into a bunch of basic concepts that just didn’t make sense to me. It was mostly a problem with economists’ words. They have different,...
Read More »Swiss summit kick-starts Ukraine peace process
I have following the SWI for a period of time. When I get a newspaper, it makes for some interesting read. This particular article discusses a potential meeting of ninety countries. The peace process was initiated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asking the Swiss to initiate such a conference. I can not imagine what he thought the outcome would be. Maybe it was to create the impression he and Ukraine were hoping to gain additional political...
Read More »Is the Taylor Swift ERAs tour in the UK inflationary?
Tyler Cowen links to an article suggesting that Taylor Swift’s upcoming concerts in London may boost inflation and delay an interest rate cut by the Bank of England. I am not a macroeconomist, but color my skeptical. For one thing, a short blip in the demand for hotel rooms in London will likely increase room rates, but this increase really will be temporary – it will reverse as soon as Swift leaves town. More significantly, spending on...
Read More »The costs of stalemate in Ukraine
Apparently the administration is letting Ukraine hit military targets in Russia, though still with some restrictions. This is way overdue. It seems clear that Russia under Putin is an expansionist power. Only a decisive defeat will prevent brutal ethnic cleansing in Ukraine. Defeat may also lead Putin to refrain from further aggression against his neighbors, and even get him to accept a vision of Russia as an ordinary European country that...
Read More »If the consumer has nowhere else to go, they’ll pay whatever price is available.
A long and interesting read. And yes on paying the price. Article by David and Lindsay on what is happening today with increasing pricing across the economy. You can experience it in just about every part of the economy. Further on down this article the authors say, this is more about pricing than supply chain. I would say this is true. However, you can discern whether excess pricing can be justified by reviewing the supply chain costs. Not...
Read More »US Oil Dealing Adds to Energy Dept. Coffers
[embedded content] WSJ. President Biden’s unprecedented release of oil from the U.S. petroleum reserves in 2022 turned the White House into an unusually active player in the volatile crude market. The flood of emergency supplies helped arrest surging oil prices after Russia invaded Ukraine and pulled billions of dollars into the Energy Department’s coffers in the process. Oil prices have sputtered since and allowed officials who sold high to...
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