To Comfort The Afflicted
And Afflict The Comfortable
The Murderous New Normal
The case of Kyle Rittenhouse, acquitted in the 2020 murders of two men amid chaos on the streets of Kenosha, WI, is ominous for the peaceful resolution of political disagreements. The sense of menace arises less from the utterly misguided 17-year-old shooter, or his complete escape from justice, than from the celebration by Republicans and […]
Food Inflation Is A Turkey Of An Issue
Economists tell us that the current high rate of inflation is not forever. And it’s not all bad, certainly not for workers whose rising wages play a part in the climbing prices. How seriously Americans are taking it may be reflected in this Wall Street Journal headline: “Retail Sales Rose by 1.7% in October Despite […]
No Heat
It is my first time traveling since the pandemic – my first plane ride, my first trip in from the airport, my first hotel stay. It feels like a big deal. I – who flew across the country every week for years – am scared. Of what, I don’t know. There is a lesson here, […]
Political Freeloaders Are All Around Us
Political freeloaders. They are to the left of us. They are to the right. These are politicians who grandstand, who vote against their constituents’ interests, knowing that their tougher colleagues will do the hard work. Start with the right. Start with Marsha Blackburn, the U.S. senator from Tennessee. She idiotically called the infrastructure bill “the […]
The SALT Tax Deduction Is Actually Progressive
No serious economist believed that former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax law would pay for itself. On the contrary, that buffet of tax cuts will explode deficits by almost $2 trillion over 11 years, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. Though the benefits went overwhelmingly to the highest-income Americans, red-state Republicans cleverly added an item […]
