Jim

  I support Elon Musk’s idea that Twitter should allow free expression. Social media tends to suppress posts that are not in line with East and West coast progressive concepts. This is a lot different from restricting things like crying,… Read More »Elon Musk and Humor

 The following is from a email from Foreign Policy magazine: When former—and now incoming—Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took to the podium in São Paulo on Sunday night following his razor-thin election victory over incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro,… Read More »Lula’s Foreign Policy

 The Financial Times reported that the EU warned that Fed rate increases could lead to world recession. It said: The Federal Reserve is leading a worldwide rush of central bank rate rises that risks tipping the world into a recession, the EU’s… Read More »EU Warns That Fed Rate Rises Could Lead to World Recession

 The Financial Times-looked at whether central banks like the Federal Reserve can go bankrupt. The answer was no, but there are effects. It quotes from a paper by Seth Carpenter at Morgan Stanley: Central bank profits and losses matter . . . but only when… Read More »Are Central Banks Going Bankrupt?

Real interest rates are still negative, they are way below the rate of inflation.  The last Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation reading in August was about 8.3%. The current Fed funds rate is about 2.5%.  The current two- year Treasury… Read More »Money Is Still Free

  America’s gross national debt exceeded $31 trillion for the first time on October 4.  This happened as interest rates on the debt will be going up and as the US may be sliding into recession.  The debt has grown… Read More »Big National Debt

  TV news lives on polls, but I don’t think they are accurate.  They show to some extent what some people are thinking, but they don’t necessarily predict the outcome of elections unless there is a substantial spread between the… Read More »Polls Are Pretty Useless

  The Founding Fathers were not enthusiastic about pure democracy.  In his excellent book, The Quartet, historian Joseph Ellis describes James Madison’s views on a democracy that represented the direct choices of “the people.”    “Madison’s experience at both the… Read More »Founding Fathers Feared Pure Democracy

  The Paris Agreement on Climate Change said that the increase in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels should be held well below 2 degrees Celsius.  It called for efforts to limite the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.  We… Read More »We Can’t Stop Global Warming