I was having a beer and watching the Giants’ game at McCarthy’s bar thinking how much I appreciate these small pleasures after being away in Africa for four years. Brandon Crawford walked up to the batter’s box and I was…
I’m a little shocked at the election outcome. Not who won so much, but rather the reaction of people who think of themselves as progressives or liberals. These are people I know. I went to school with them. I worked…
I live in Kenya. This weekend President Obama visited with his extended family and government officials. His presence got me thinking about his struggles as President… On October 9, 2009, the Norwegian Nobel Committee voted to award the Peace Prize…
I moved to Burundi in February. I work for a small company providing training and micro credit to 30,000 subsistence farmers. Recently, I spoke with several Burundian friends about the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. I asked them if they…
On February 1st, Janet Louise Yellen, will become the most powerful woman in the world. At the independent Fed, the Chairman must occasionally answer badly informed and sometimes snarky questions from congress but other than a cumbersome impeachment process (see…
All men are created equal but they do not stay that way for long. As they age the dispersion of incomes increases dramatically. So there are two questions here. Why does this happen and is it a problem? A couple…
Environmental economists have a useful framework to analyze limited but renewable resources. It is called maximum sustainable yield. For a fishery, it measures the number of fish that can be harvested each year without impairing the future viability of the…
“I pity the poor immigrant Who wishes he would’ve stayed home Who uses all his power to do evil But in the end is always left so alone.” – Bob Dylan 1967 The immigration debate…
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland Now that enough people have made it through the looking glass of www.healthcare.gov, we are beginning to find out more about the…
Five years ago we found out who was not too big to fail. Lehman Brothers went down on September 15, 2008, with over $600 billion in assets setting off a remarkable chain of events. A few days later John McCain…