The mainspring of Donald Trump’s base is anger. It is fueled by humiliation. America’s Great Recession defined the tipping point, politically and economically. In the ten-year period following the Recession’s onset, economic performance of congressional districts labeled Blue diverged at a breathtaking pace from those labeled Red. GDP grew a full one-third in Blue districts, […]
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Trump’s playing an economic and political role parallel with American President Herbert Hoover, from a century ago. Hoover’s the one that economists associate with a failed culture of orderliness. Locked up with him in his dysfunctional, rigid thinking about how he believed the economic world should work, were millions of unemployed Americans. Sound familiar?
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Capitalism and Fraud Fraud’s on the rise in American capitalism, politics and culture. It occurs when a “sucker” is tricked, duped or hustled into acting against their best interest. Deception always plays a part. Here’s four alleged frauds, drawn from the news on a single day, the last day of Summer, 2020: National Institutes of […]
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My last post dug into the challenge of equilibrium in economics. It’s an analytical lens, inherited from physical scientist Isaac Newton. When an economist invokes equilibrium and then looks through that lens only, doing so may obscure other aspects of emerging problems in actual economies. Laissez-faire economists were unable to cope with Great Depression problems […]
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Where to start? Let’s start here. Macroeconomics is largely science but built upon huge metaphysical assumptions. One notable assumption is orderliness. We should ask then, what happens when some assumptions, orderliness included, no longer describe aptly, the way in which the contemporary economic world has come to work? Our focus initially is upon physical scientist […]
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Amid the culture wars, some from the political right pluck a Leo Tolstoy quote out of context, then use it to express disdain for government. “I sit on a man’s back,” said Tolstoy, “choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish […]
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Industrial policy? Isn’t it verboten for Republicans? Don’t conservatives believe proactive government misallocates resources and suboptimizes economic outcomes? They do. More recently however, industrial policy perspectives are getting a makeover from many on the political right. If Donald Trump captures a second term, the Republican “take” on government’s appropriate economic role may grow ever-closer to […]
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How to reclaim a sense of Francis Bacon’s wonderment about capitalism’s future? About America’s road ahead? About the future of participatory American democracy? Let’s start with these three things. We’ll be expanding on each and explaining their necessity for America to thrive. First, demarcate productive capitalism. Then, draw a bright line around what capitalism is […]
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Look carefully at the expression on Francis Bacon’s face. He was a consummate Type II. I remain spellbound by Bacon’s expression, placed there by Henry Weekes, his sculptor. Weekes’ masterpiece is tucked away in the Trinity College Chapel at Cambridge University. What was the sculptor attempting in his depiction of Bacon? Why does Bacon’s message […]
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Does history repeat itself? Maybe we’re entering a Second Great Depression? Or perhaps even a rerun of America’s Civil War? Now as then, our people are beset by a crisis of vision. Who are we now, and what do we choose to become? Can culture warfare be transcended? Can we move toward building and sharing […]
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