Thursday, November 20, 2025

Links 2/13/2025

‘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.

Links 2/12/2025

KLG: The Engineering Ideal in Biology and Its Utility or Disutility

How the engineering ideal in biology, already taken further than is realistic, has become a foundation for the quest for eternal life.

Chaos Theory: Assessing the Legal Validity of Trump’s Tariffs

A look at the legality of Trump tariffs. Sadly, another proof that international law does not count for much in practice.

Mr. Treasury Market Tells Fed It Is Even More Worried About Inflation

The Fed vigorously backpedaled on further cuts, pivoting to wait-and-see, due to long-term rates signaling inflation concerns.

2:00PM Water Cooler 2/11/2025

~ Today’s Water Cooler: Politics, syndemics ~

Imperialism (Still) Rules

Many in the West now deny imperialism. But even the Economist now sees Trump’s revival of this US legacy.

Links 2/11/2025

Is Washington Setting Its Sights on Mexico’s Former President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador?

“There is a legal and judicial offensive under way in Washington to accuse the former president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, of having made pacts with drug traffickers.”

KLG: “If the Overhead Cuts to NIH and NSF Grants Go Through Without Changes, Academic Biomedical and Other Research in the US Will Crumble into Dust”

Why the Musk attack on NIH and NSF funding formulas will eviscerate US medical research.