“History stopped in 1936” – George Orwell,Looking back on the Spanish War According to George Orwell, it was during his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War for the Republican side against [ … ]
The 2017 Bank of England Stress Tests – What to Expect
Key points The key issue is and always was the (lack of) resilience of the UK banking system. It is mathematically impossible to take a weak banking system, subject it [ … ]
Amazon is taking NYC’s lunch money
Amazon is the elephant, we are the blind men gathered around it, each feeling a different part and none in agreement with ‘what it is’. I walk around it and [ … ]
How Governments Tax Reduces Inequality More Than How They Spend
November 6, 2017 Political attention often focuses on how governments spend money to reduce inequality, but direct tax systems (not including sales and other indirect taxes) do more for helping [ … ]
Timestamping my predictions for UFC 217 #UFC217
Time stamping my predictions for UFC 217 I’m not gonna give a whole analysis or the forensics of how I came to my guess, because it just doesn’t matter. Either something [ … ]
Self-inflicted KORUS damage
Last year, in the context of the political campaign, and Donald Trump’s pledge to get tough with our trade partners, Sherman Robinson, Tyler Moran, and I did some modeling of [ … ]
At last some sense on climate change
A few years back perennial BS vendor Naomi Klein wrote a book called This Changes Everything. She argued, in typically economically illiterate fashion, that the threat of climate change requires [ … ]
Google, Facebook and Amazon ate America. Now they are digesting.
Google, Facebook and Amazon have direct influence over 80%+ of internet traffic. They own it all, they’ve eaten and now they are digesting. Google, Facebook and Amazon services had 60% [ … ]
US Trade Representative “Surprised and Disappointed” Statement from Latest NAFTA Talks—Annotated and Explained
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer declared in his closing remarks at the NAFTA renegotiations in October 2017: “I am surprised and disappointed by the resistance to change from our negotiating [ … ]
Solar and Washing Machine Safeguards in Context: The History of US Section 201 Use
President Trump is about to decide whether to escalate the pressure on leading trade partners of the United States, at the risk of precipitating more conflicts in the trade arena. [ … ]