With all due sympathy to the respective families, it has been painful to watch the slow-motion tragedy at the Titanic gravesite. Predictably, critics who enjoy labeling others as stupid are promptly labeling the dead as stupid. I object to that! I remember a Master Sergeant telling me on a rainy Friday night long ago that “unless you look death in the eye, lieutenant, how do…
It takes some discipline to write an economic blog about something unimportant. Today’s inflation report showed that inflation has decreased for eleven straight months – ELEVEN STRAIGHT MONTHS. Expecting year-over-year inflation of 4.1%, it is only 4.0%. That’s a long way from 9.1% last year. The Fed’s goal is a mere 2.0% rate of inflation. Of course, wringing the last percentage point out of inflation…
Sometimes, a book will color your perspective forever. Such a book for me was The $elling of the President 1968 by the late Joe McGinniss. He changed the way we look at elections. Some professors would tell us that elections are contests between “philosophies and visions.” Others explain that elections are contests between mere personalities. McGinniss would argue elections are marketing contests, like the sales…
Existentialism was made for days like yesterday. Man’s inhumanity to man was demonstrated with the evil brilliance of Putin who blew up the Ukrainian dam, causing an unknown loss of life, billions of dollars of destruction, and effectively forestalling the expected military counter-offensive of Ukraine. It could be a turning point in this war. Later in the day, the venerated sport of golf was forced…
In 1958, a New Zealand born economist named William Phillips noted an odd relationship between inflation and unemployment. The “Phillips Curve” was born! For years, it was believed that the way to lower unemployment was to increase inflation, and the way to decrease inflation was to increase unemployment. This “inverse relationship” was hailed as an intellectual breakout . . . until the stagflation of the…