Could major incident in the Baltic Sea spark a crisis that leads to Russian escalation, thwarting Ukraine talks?
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
2:00PM Water Cooler 2/14/2025
~ Today’s Water Cooler: Politics, Syndemics; USAID shutdown vexes evangelicals; from their websites, the DOGEbags couldn’t code a lemonade stand; Boeing not out of the woods; Valentine’s Day musical interlude ~
‘Going Against Trump Policies Is Not Fraud’: White House Panned Over Absurd Defense of DOGE
Administration efforts to defend DOGE confirm that spending cuts are ideological, and not value-neutral ‘efficiency’ or cost reduction
How Real and Sustainable Is Argentina’s Much-Touted Economic Recovery?
Over the past year Milei’s government has managed to slash inflation as well as post Argentina’s largest ever annual trade surplus. But can it turn round the industrial downturn it itself unleashed?
How Climate Denial is Fueling a U.S. Homeowners Insurance Crisis and Risking a 2008-Style Financial Meltdown
A climate-change-driven insurance and eventual mortgage/housing price crisis is getting momentum. And unlike 2008, price recovery is unlikely
Europe’s Challenge and Opportunity in the Trump Era: Building Coalitions of the Willing
How some ideas for bolstering Europe’s position in the Trump era are not as well thought through as they ought to be.
2:00PM Water Cooler 2/13/2025
~ Today’s Water Cooler: Politics, Syndemics; Yanis Varoufakis on Trumponomics; DOGE not putting up the numbers on fraud; Zephyr Teachout on the real powers the Democrats have ~
Initial Thoughts on US-Russia Talks on Ukraine War as Ukraine and EU Have Nervous Breakdowns
Plenty of people are seriously Not Happy that Trump and Putin are talking about Ukraine, and some do have agency.
‘Make America Healthy Again’ by Transforming Animal Agriculture
Will RFK, Jr., tackle the many health-harming the practices around industrial animal farming?
Global Value Chains in a World of Uncertainty and Automation
Global supply chain expansion slowed to crawl speed after the 2008 crisis. But that did not translate into much reshoring.
The Golden Goose: The Consequences of Trump’s War on American Universities
A bug or a feature? The Trump plan to cap NIH/NSF grant indirect overheads is a gut punch to the economics of top universities.
2:00PM Water Cooler 2/12/2025: DOGEbags to Infest Entire Federal Government with Bolshevik-Style Parallel Party Structure
Bird Song of the Day Patient readers, I apologize for the enormous typo. This is what I (and you) get then I deviate from my standard template. –lambert Brown Thrasher, Sippo Lake–Exploration Gateway, Stark, Ohio, United States. * * * By Lambert Strether There’s a quotation from John D. MacDonald’s Pale Grey for Guilt that […]
Trump’s Shock Doctrine: Uncertainty and the Repudiation of Contracts
How Trump’s economic revolution and the uncertainty it is creating are already wreaking havoc.
