The problem with economics — too much maths, too little history .[embedded content] Mainstream economists have always wanted to use their hammer, and so have decided to pretend that the world looks like a nail. Pretending that uncertainty can be reduced to risk and that all activities, relations, processes, and events can be adequately converted to pure numbers, have only contributed to making economics irrelevant and powerless when confronting real-world...

I gave this exact date all the way back in September.

Other than among Jehovah’s Witnesses, vaccination rightly gained widespread trust and acceptance in America. Innoculation against smallpox was around for hundreds of years before Jenner described the eponymous vaccine. Polio was a scourge in the US through the 1950s until it was virtually eliminated by vaccination. Many deadly diseases like whooping cough and measles were all but elimated in my lifetime through vaccination.Now, thanks to rank...

Weekly Indicators for February 12 – 16 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat I am back from my travels, so it’s time to catch up. There’s no significant economic news until tomorrow, but in the meantime I neglected to link to my weekly high frequency indicator wrap-up, which was posted at Seeking Alpha. As usual, if you haven’t already done so, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual minute on the economic data and...

Predatory For-Profit Education: Exploiting Students

[embedded content]My brief interview at the Rick Smith Show on the likelihood of a recession this year, and the unfounded fears about public debt in the United States.

Unlocking Economic Success Through Debt Cancellation

from Lars Syll We certainly agree that regularities or models that explain or that give heuristic value over many different cases are highly desirable. But ones that do neither are not — especially if they use up huge resources along the way. When looking at the details, the Prisoner’s Dilemma’s explanatory record so far is poor and its heuristic record mixed at best. The only way to get a reliable sense of what theoretical input would actually be useful is via detailed empirical...

What’s Medicare’s secret sauce for controlling costs? The agency sets provider prices. It’s still the prices, stupid, GoozNews, Merrill Goozner, Sept. 7, 2023 AB: What is fun is my being able to talk to these guys and exchange thoughts. Then I bring them to Angry Bear. Kind of under the weather yesterday and today. Got the chills and a headache. The Times’ Upshot columnists weighed in on Labor Day on a subject I’ve written about extensively...

Some history While debating the original Post Office Act, Alexander Hamilton and others argued the post should support itself and make money for the rest of the government. Others, including George Washington and James Madison, didn’t seem to care whether it turned a profit. Jonathan Trumbull, the speaker of the House of Representatives in 1792, observed that having the post subsidize the circulation of periodicals would be “among the surest means...