Prejudices, bigotry, misogyny, sexism, discrimination, racism, and put-downs are all forms of bullying. Around since when, the put-down is an especially egregiously harmful form of bullying meant to diminish its target’s self-esteem. To bring them down; to keep them down. Long common to inter-city ghettos, it has of late (or maybe not so late) become a favorite of the Republican Party. Its members reflexively denigrate anyone holding viewpoints...

Dean is on a roll here with propositions for the nation as it ages. Thoughtfully, I called it initially a Quiver of Arrows in Support of the economy and in the end Social Security. He is answering a question of what do we need to do to prepare for an aging population and lower replacement rates. We may not need to do as much as we think. By the way this post is a follow up to Dale Coberly’s post; Social Security Trustees’ Report Is Out So Is...

A new Wall Street Journal-NORC poll reveals that a majority of Americans believe a college degree isn't worth the cost and time. Sliding confidence in the higher education system indicates that the American Dream can be achieved without a college degree.If this represents a developing trend, it potentially presages cultural and institutional realignment. Zero HedgeSliding Confidence: Majority Of Americans Question The Value Of CollegeTyler Durden

Dirk H. Ehnts is a German heterodox economist. He is one of the leading proponents of Modern Monetary Theory in Europe. Ehnts worked as a visiting professor at the Berlin School of Economics and Law between 2012 and 2014, where he taught classes on macroeconomics, money, and currency. Within that period, he undertook a semester off to work as visiting professor at the Latin America Institute of the Free University of Berlin. In 2015, he moved to the Bard College Berlin, while from the end...

Busting the natural rate of unemployment myth Almost sixty years ago Milton Friedman wrote an (in)famous article arguing that (1) the natural rate of unemployment was independent of monetary policy and that (2) trying to keep the unemployment rate below the natural rate would only give rise to higher and higher inflation. The hypothesis has always been controversial, and much theoretical and empirical work has questioned the real-world relevance of the idea...

Never, never, never give in! .[embedded content]

Social Security Trustees’ Report Is Out So Is CRFB’s Analysis by Dale Coberly Look, I don’t like CRFB.  They claim to be the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), but in the years I have been watching them they have looked more like the Committee to Cut Social Security. Today my inbox presented me with a note from CRFB on this year’s Trustees Report.  As far as I can tell CRFB is telling the truth here, strictly speaking. ...

Lets get this out of the way first; Speaker 1 is Charlie Sykes of “The Bulwark Podcast“. Speaker 2 is former Federal Judge Michael Luttig. The talk and the partial transcript is about trump and the events leading up to January 6 starting 2 days before the attempt. As I read through the entire Transcript, I would call it “a “what do or did you know and when did you know it” interrogation. “The question to be asked is could the January 6th...