Max von Sydow — non plus ultra Max von Sydow (1929-2020) medverkade i över ett hundra filmer och TV-serier. Han gjorde många minnesvärda roller, men den som har berört mig mest är som fadern i Pelle Erövraren — baserad på Martin Andersen Nexös episka mästerverk. Bille August regisserade. Stefan Nilsson skrev musiken. Max von Sydow gjorde sitt livs prestation. Och det skär i mitt fadershjärta varje gång jag ser den. [embedded content]

Major government transfers, yesterday, but I’m still not a fan of this rally. 

from Peter Radford A pile of bricks is not a house.  A group of individuals is not an economy. A lot has to happen between the one and the other.  Which is why writing theories about economies as if it were simply an accumulation of individuals and their associated capital base misses the mark.  Nor is it simply a matter of how those individuals behave —rationally or not — their interactions create novelty that cannot and does not exist at the individual level. Of course economists...

This week's guest is Denise Hearn, and we are going to cover a lot. So enjoy! She advises governments, financial institutions, companies, and nonprofits on antitrust, economic policy, and new economic thinking. She is currently a Resident Senior Fellow at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, a joint center of Columbia University Law School and Columbia Climate School. Denise co-authored The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition with Jonathan Tepper —...

Socialism or Dictatorship?

My wife drives a 21 year-old Pontiac Vibe (= Toyota Matrix). It could fail at any time, and the question of what she’ll replace it with is on our minds. EV or hybrid? I personally know some Tesla owners who are happy with their choice, but I remain concerned about range and charging stations. Thanks, Elon, for warning me off EVs!“The day before Elon Musk fired virtually all of Tesla’s electric-vehicle charging division last month, they had high hopes...

by Laura B. Attanasio and Kimberley H. Geissler Health Affairs This article is the latest in the Health Affairs Forefront series, Accountable Care for Population Health, featuring analysis and discussion of how to understand, design, support, and measure patient-centered, cost-efficient care under the umbrella of accountable care. ~~~~~~~~ The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any industrialized country, and it...

 – by New Deal democrat First, a programming note: I’ll post about retail sales later today. Consumer inflation in April continued essentially to be an interplay between shelter and gas prices, with a side helping of auto insurance and repairs. During late 2022 and early 2023, shelter was still accelerating or steady at a high rate of inflation, while gas prices were falling. Beginning in late 2023, the dynamic reversed, as shelter inflation...

by Ron Bousso Reuters A brief on what BP is doing. My guess is they are going to cut output to drive the market. It could be that other oil companies could fill the gap or move with BP. However, they prefer trump in office so making Biden look bad is a realistic plan for them. Their attorneys are already writtening the executive orders. Speaking to Reuters on Tuesday after BP announced $2.7 billion in first quarter profits, CEO Auchincloss...

 – by New Deal democrat Tomorrow and Thursday a plethora of data will be released, on consumer inflation and spending, production, housing, and jobless claims. In the meantime today we got a chance to look at upstream pressures on inflation. And those upstream pressures do seem to be building slightly, reflecting a strong economy with full employment. Commodity prices increased 0.9%. These are very volatile, so this was not particularly out...