Apparently they have buried Bin Laden at sea in accordance with the muslim religious requirement that the body be buried within 24 hours. How convenient. So how do we know he is dead? Trust us. The problem is that most people have very little faith in government at all. And [...]

With China’s Premier in town, it seems a good time to review where the United States stands vis-a-vis China in the realm of trade.  China is still nominally a Communist state.  It is an authoritarian state.  It imprisons its citizens on the basis of their thoughts without affording them due process of law or access [...]

I am in the habit of rolling through most stop signs at 4 way stops. I used to come to pretty much a full stop. But then I thought about the following.   The U.S. imported 1.2 Million barrels of oil per day from Saudi Arabia in 2009. At $70 per barrel (that [...]

UPDATE:  4 June 2009 – Freedom House and some other organizations have released a report, Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians (pdf) that captures the ideas expressed here so I guess it is now official.
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I have been meaning to write about this for about 5 years, but the installment of the Obama administration with what should [...]

It is amazing how much nonsense is thrown around by people on CNBC.  Dennis pleading with the president of NYMEX to raise margin requirements so speculators cannot take such big positions.  Congresspeople talking about curbing speculators (see below).  Can we really so stupid as to blame the messenger rather than attacking the causes?
It is very [...]

As a form of national protest at the high and rising cost of energy and food, everyone in the nation should stay home on Wednesday, June 11th.  This might help get the attention of the idiots in Washington and the ear of fellow citizens who – for whatever strange reason – are not thinking much [...]

One reason central bankers, oil sheiks and chinese politburo officials should like the euro is that there is no single political will behind it to obscure or threaten its value. Whereas the US is s single country, if things go bad, they go bad. The euro block, as a collection of separate countries [...]

A coworker just returned from an extended visit to her family in Caracas, Venezuela. She confirms some of what you read in the press, like the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. As a result of el Presidente seeking to identify voters with fingerprints, and hence being able to threaten those who [...]