from Dean Baker We have long known that people in policy debates have difficulty with arithmetic and basic logic. We got yet another example today in the New York Times. The NYT profiled Geoffrey Hinton, who recently resigned as head of AI technology at Google. The piece identified him as “the godfather of AI.” The piece reports on Hinton’s concerns about the risks of AI, one of which is its implications for the job market. “He is also worried that A.I. technologies will in time upend the...

The – Washington Consensus – has been out in full force this week with the US Federal Reserve and the RBA increasing interest rates further despite all the indications that inflation peaked months ago and its downward trajectory has had little if anything to do with the ridiculous interest rate rises since early 2022. Both banks, along with most other central banks, are just thumbing through the New Keynesian textbook to get their direction and pretending to be capable of assessing the...

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Russia is taking the gloves off as the US/NATO continues poking into the bear's lair.Global SouthPatrushev: Interview with Isvestia [Important. It explains why the Russian leadership views the conflict in Ukraine and the actions of NATO as actually between the US and Russia over Russia continued existence. Therefore, it is existential for both since this puts the US at risk of destruction also. It can easily lead to WWIII and a strategic nuclear exchange. For example, there have been two...

14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868) | National Archives, Section 4. “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against...

It’s Wednesday, and we have a few observations on recent events including a music feature. But the main issue in the last 24 hours is the decision by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to add an 11th interest rate increase at a time when inflation is falling significantly. As I noted last week, the narrative is now shifting among these characters – it is all about inflation not falling ‘fast enough’ and they still claim a wages explosion is likely unless they get inflation down more...

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March JOLTS report shows labor market about halfway to pre-pandemic normalization  – by New Deal democrat The title of this piece is an important to clue the relative nature of this morning’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover report for March. For the last several years, the jobs market has been a game of “reverse musical chairs,” where there are always more chairs than participants. Those employers whose chairs weren’t filled had to increase...

Another collection of articles on various topics from my In-Box. Puling quite a bit from Healthcare. Some interesting articles in this batch. I hope you take a few moments and read some of them. Most are not terribly long winded. I wander in the comments section to see what is being said on various topics. I am not impressed with many of the responses. The ones on carrying bullet-spewing-weapons are just plain ignorant. Healthcare Doctor on...

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