I am a bit puzzled by how anxious Donald Trump and the people around him are to make nice with Russia. Let's put Russia in perspective...

"Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?" Letter to his son, 1634. The Brexit vote last night ver...

It is becoming pretty clear that the most urgent question facing today's Europe is the German question. Paul Krugman sees Germany as k...

The calendar says today is Veterans' Day. History says today is Armistice Day - the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, when th...

Scotland votes today on the referendum to leave the United Kingdom. Yes or No? The polls don't reveal how the vote will go. Earlier th...

"Supposing is good, but finding out is better." - Mark Twain For some reason, newspapers and blogs today are full of discussions...

The budget just passed by the Republican House of Representatives sheds new light on the phrase "living within our means." ...

A little etymology is in order.  Fortunately, Timothy Taylor in his blog "The Conversable Economist" saves us the trouble of porin...

Justin Fox in Harvard Business Review has an interesting article on Ukraine's economy. Why is it so bad? In a nutshell - rampant corrup...

American CEO's Are Forty Times As Productive As Germans At least that is what one might assume from the above graphic. Tha...

Early this evening, the Republican-dominated US House of Representatives passed a "clean" bill to raise the debt ceiling without t...

From early childhood, we Americans are conditioned to believe the most important human events are the big game. Athletic contests define us....

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of ev...

“The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent gover...

Someone long ago decided that economics is "the dismal science." It therefore may come as a shock to learn that economists (at l...

I have heard people ask, in apparent confusion: "Just what does the Democratic Party stand for?" There should be no confusion. H...

Today's News and Observer prints an editorial concerning the income gap between ordinary working Americans and the super wealthy, explai...

We have a lot of headline activity every time the "unemployment rate" goes up or down. But what matters much more is the overall...

Writing for the Fiscal Times ,  Republican pundit Bruce Bartlett sees a possible Republican defeat in 2014 because of the government shutdow...

Much current commentary tends to describe the Tea Party phenomenon as just a bit more extreme than mainstream Republicanism, but within the ...