Bitcoin and Tulipmania
Bitcoin made new highs, investors made a fortune. The only explanation is their unquestioned brilliance. Have we seen this before?...
Subjective Probabilities: Texas Edition
Earlier this year I added a number of Trump possibilities, but only thought two were likely (probability over 50%): Trump would serve out...
Free Markets
A free market exists when goods and services are bought and sold in open markets at prices determined by supply and demand. Free markets...
Dark Charisma
I recently watched a BBC documentary called "The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler," then read Shirer's The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler...
Misbehaving: a Book Review
Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, Richard Thaler (2015). This is something of a memoir of Thaler more or less creating...
Thaler Wins the Nobel Prize
Richard Thaler, professor of economics at Chicago, won the 2017 Nobel Prize in economics. He is a founder of behavioral economics, which...
Fragile by Design: Book Review
Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises & Scarce Credit (2014), Calomiris & Haber. The key point of this book is the...
Book Review on Business Fraud
Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal, Eugene Soltes (2016). Soltes wrote, called, and emailed various...
Franken Book Review
Al Franken: Giant of the Senate (2017). The strange story of how a comedy writer/performer became a serious politician. Apparently, he...
American Exceptionalism
Is this a thing? Or do people just role their eyes? It seems to be a thing, worth considering, but possibly taking a skeptical look. The...
David Brooks on Moderates
David Brooks' August 22, 2017 column in the New York Times (which showed up on Facebook) was "What Moderates Believe." Here are some...
Predisposed--Book Review
Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences, by John Hibbing, Kevin Smith & John Alford (2014). The...
Unemployment Stats
Some issues should not result in much political disagreement, but do. Labor statistics become partisan despite good statistical analysis...
Unbiased News?
Fake news is a thing, sites that publish hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation. Unethical journalism has a long history. At the founding...
Likely Events
Listing possible events is one thing; determining realistic probabilities another. Of the list yesterday, I think two are likely (greater...