~ Today’s Water Cooler: Politics, Syndemics; Trump’s first week; Democrats for 2028;
Surviving pandemics ~
Wednesday, April 23, 2025
2:00PM Water Cooler 1/27/2025
What France Loses by Closing Its Military Bases in Africa
What happens when a former colonial power like France loses one of the key implements of its control?
The Growing Inequality in Life Expectancy Among Americans
To deliver on pledges from the new Trump administration to make America healthy again, policymakers will need to fix problems undermining life expectancy across all populations.
A Trump Pivot Away From Europe? Not So Fast: The Plunder Is Too Lucrative for American Plutocrats
Europe is now largely an American colony where the tech, energy, weapons, and financial industries are making a killing, so it’s no wonder Trump isn’t going to substantially shift US policy.
New York Times Defends Mexican Cartels Because US Economy
The New York Times sinks to a new low in defending Mexican cartels because they are too intertwined in US economic activity.
Tariffs Are Coming: How Trade Dynamics Will Shape Aggregate Demand and Inflation
Consumers may not suffer from more inflation per official data if Trump imposes tariffs. But that does not mean they won’t be worse off.
Will the Newly Declassified CIA “Assessment” of Covid Origins in Wuhan Include the Possibility of Early Spread in Italy?
The possibility of early Covid spread is unlikely to mentioned in the newly released CIA assessment of Covid origins, since ths alternative hypothesis clearly contradicts the timeline held today as canon.
Wolf Richter: DOGE Seeks to Shed Vast Amounts of Government Office Space. Here’s How Much the Government Leases, and Where, and What Leases it Can Shed During Trump’s Term
For CRE, the motto in 2024 was “Survive till 2025” via extend-and-pretend. Now it’s 2025, and here comes the government’s office space.
Michael Hudson: Trump’s Balance-of-Payments War on Mexico, and the Whole World
Why US trade and economic threats against Mexico could trigger a financial/currency crisis that may propagate across the Global South
President Trump Promises to Make Government Efficient − and He’ll Run Into the Same Roadblocks as Presidents Taft, Roosevelt, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush, Among Others
Why “make government efficient” and cost cutting programs are close to destined to come up short.
2:00PM Water Cooler 1/24/2025
~ Today’s Water Cooler: Politics, syndemics; Trump on the road in North Carolina and California.Hegseth advances to floor vote; Smile Nazis in action; Snow in the South ~
How Much Will Trump’s Bark Exceed His Bite? Doubts About Whether Disruptive Federal Hiring and Spending Pauses Will Produce Lasting Changes
Trump is adept at using his willingness to be wildly inconsistent to destabilize opponents. But he is unduly fond of using blunt instruments like tariffs that he can impose unilaterally, with insufficient consideration of whether they will work all that well, let alone what bad unintended effects they might generate. What Trump has done so […]
