Economics and International Affairs Blog

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

Credit Card Debt – An Indicator of the Health of US Consumers

Young Americans have fallen seriously behind on their payments, adding to angst about the true health of U.S. consumers.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-15/millennials-are-helping-to-sound-the-credit-card-alarm

Middle East Mess – 2019 Edition

Middle East Mess – 2019 Edition

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/world/middleeast/trump-iran-threats.html

“Privately, several European officials described Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo as pushing an unsuspecting Mr. Trump through a series of steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realizes it.”
Related:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-ordersnon-emergency-government-employees-to-leave-iraq/2019/05/15/80ec7fb4-76e8-11e9-ac17-284a66782c41_story.html

How to Stop the March to War with Iran

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/opinion/stop-iran-war.html

David Frum on the dangers of engaging in another war

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/the-iraq-war-was-a-failurewar-with-iran-would-be-worse/589534/

Trump’s foolish Iran policy only makes war more likely

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/09/trump-iran-regime-change-resistance

Manchester City on Top of the English Premier League

Changing power structure in the English Premier League
https://www.economist.com/game-theory/2019/05/12/how-manchester-city-came-to-rule-english-football

Has Spanish Dominance of Champions League Football Come to an End?
http://global.espn.com/football/spanish-primera-division/15/blog/post/3849270/spains-giants-like-barcelona-real-madrid-used-to-dominate-in-europe-but-is-it-now-the-premier-leagues-turn

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Surreal Politics

Conservatism has become a racket, and Trump is the grifter in chief

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/does-a-trump-doctrine-on-foreign-policy-exist-ask-john-bolton/2019/05/02/6d209220-6d1c-11e9-a66d-a82d3f3d96d5_story.html

Mr. Murdoch, the founder of a global media empire that includes Fox News, helped topple governments and destabilize democracies around the world.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/magazine/rupert-murdoch-fox-news-trump.html

It’s clear why Trump likes autocrats. But why are American conservatives following him?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/13/american-conservatives-are-new-fellow-travelers/

Consequences of a Second Term for Trump

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/opinion/trump-2020.html

Tom Friedman notes:

“I think a lot of people today are frightened that the country is getting pulled apart at the seams. It starts with Trump: His extreme language and behavior, amplified by social media, fuels extreme reactions. And this is clearly heating up the society and stimulating some fringe actors on the right to physically attack people they believe Trump has identified as “enemies” of the state.

Surely one reason Trump’s favorability rating is nowhere near as high as it should be — given the soaring economy — is that many Americans are worried that another Trump term will bring us to a political civil war.”

Decade in the Red: Trump Tax Figures Show Over $1 Billion in Business Losses

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/07/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html

The Complicity of American Media

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/trump-taxes/588967/

As a Businessman, Trump Was the Biggest Loser of All

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/as-a-businessman-trump-was-the-biggest-loser-of-all

Gen X – The Forever Lost Generation

This Gen X Mess

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/14/style/generation-xers.html

“Like many things considered “cool,” Gen X is pretty exclusive. You had to be born between 1965 and 1980 to get in to this gloomy, goofy club of forgotten middle children, and only about 65 million of us were. (Both boomers, at 75 million, and millennials, at 83 million, far outnumber us.)”