Extending START ;It is not a big headline story among all the other things newly inaugurated Joe Biden is doing, but it is being reported that despite a generally more hostile approach to Russia, he has agreed with what Russian President Putin has said he wants, which is to simply extend the current nuclear weapons […] The post Extending START appeared first on Angry Bear. [Read More...]
The New Coup Attempt
The New Coup Attempt OK, I thought that the collapse of Trump’s lawsuits and the flight of his top lawyers was going to do in his coup attempt. But we now see a far more desperate effort going on, although with Trump still trying to stay at least marginally within legal boundaries, although not by […] [Read More...]
Why Does MbS Want Hillary Clinton’s Emails?
Why Does MbS Want Hillary Clinton’s Emails? In yesterday’s Washington Post David Ignatius reports in a column about serious efforts by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) to get the infamous emails of Hillary Clinton publicized, something that President Trump also wants and SecState Pompeo has been promising while complaining about problems getting them […] [Read More...]
When did Israel Become “America’s Best Ally”?
When did Israel Become “America’s Best Ally”? In the recent US Vice Presidential debate, the current US VP, Mike Pence dropped a throwaway line that until nobody has noticed until now. He labeled Israel as America’s “best ally,” or a term meaning the same thing. I think that from at least 1917 the “best ally” […] [Read More...]
Death Comes To My Old Economics Department
Death Comes To My Old Economics Department That would be the one at my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I have learned that on July 6 one of its current members died, Bill Sandholm, an excellent evolutionary game theorist who was about 50 years old. It is a sign of my age that he […] [Read More...]
What Is “Democratic Socialism�?
What Is “Democratic Socialism”? Probably the best answer is whatever Bernie Sanders says it is as he is by far the most famous person ever to adopt this term as a label for his beliefs. There is a group in the US bearing that name, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which has been in […] [Read More...]
Is Iraq About To Switch From US to Russia?
Is Iraq About To Switch From US to Russia? Today Juan Cole reports from a newspaper in Iraq that since Mohammed al-Allawi has become the new prime minister in Iraq, there has been a meeting in Baghdad between the Russian ambassador and the Iraqi milirary Chief of Staff, and the Iraqi president, Saleh, will be […] [Read More...]
Op ed on Country Music
Country Music I have been watching Ken Burns’s “Country Music” series on PBS. May not watch too much more of it as I am not that interested in more recent country music, although I like some of it. So the big story of this series is how much of supposedly “white music” is of African-American […] [Read More...]
Alan Krueger And Happiness
Alan Krueger And Happiness It took awhile for me to remember after his apparent suicide that the late Alan Krueger was the coauthor of what I consider to be the best paper published on happiness economics, “Develpments in the Measurement of Subjective Well-Being,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2006, 20(1), 2-24, https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/08953300677 . (I apologize if that […] [Read More...]
On Some Predictions
On Some Predictions I am not somebody who makes endo/beginning of year predictions, and I am not about to stsrt now. But I have just read a guest post by Jeffrey Frankel on Econbrowser where he brags about making six accurate predictions for 2018 while not reporting on some others he made that did not […] [Read More...]
Goodbye To Goodlatte And The GOP Going From Lincoln To Trump
(Dan here…Paul Ryan’s farewell speech, Jeff Session’s targeting ‘consent decrees’, and what else?) Goodbye To Goodlatte And The GOP Going From Lincoln To Trump Outgoing Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte is my Congressman. I even know him, having had civil almost friendly relations. He has been in office for 26 years. But […] [Read More...]