“It doesn’t seem likely that tens of millions of people have suddenly been grabbing up copies of Karl Marx’s works and become convinced by the insights of his writings. A more plausible story is that for two decades, people have seen Democrats who stand up for programs like Social Security and Medicare being denounced as ‘socialists’ by Republican politicians who want to cut back or eliminate these programs. These programs are overwhelmingly popular with the American people, but especially among Democrats. If voters believe the Republicans’ charge, that people who support these programs are socialists, it is understandable that they would say they have a positive view of socialism. By contrast, Republicans seem to have a qualitatively different view of the role of government.” (08/04/26)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jennifer Kavanagh
“Lawmakers will feel good voting for Lindsey Graham’s ‘passion project’ but it won’t end the war and if anything hurts American economic and political interests.” (08/04/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Wanjiru Njoya
“Economists who worry about wealth disparities between racial groups are preoccupied with addressing the causes of racial inequality. They all have different theories and explanations about the causes of racial wealth gaps, but the prevailing assumption is that some form of unfairness must be driving it. The key form of unfairness thought to produce disparities in racial outcomes is discrimination. Discrimination may be direct or indirect. According to critical race theories, it includes things like legacies of oppression, systemic racism, and even unconscious bias. The general idea is that government can fix these manifestations of discrimination—by banning or penalizing them—thereby reducing or eliminating the racial attainment gap. Those who assume economic disparities are caused by racial discrimination rely on what Robert Nozick termed ‘normative sociology,’ where any narrative can be used to derive one’s preferred causal explanations.” (08/04/26)
“Currently we live in a world bristling with nuclear and conventional weapons, with a potential destructiveness unprecedented in history. A nuclear war, for example, would largely be over in one hour, with each second equivalent in destruction to World War II. Meanwhile, our security is increasingly threatened by skyrocketing global military expenditure at the same time as the United Nation’s capacity to maintain peace is being undermined by member states starving the organization of funds. In the aftermath of two world wars, there was considerable hope that humanity would learn its lesson and that each would be ‘the war to end all wars’.” (08/04/26)
“A major objection by protectionists is that international trade with other countries, especially low-wage countries, will undermine American workers. As a consequence, there will be a ‘giant sucking sound’ (to use Ross Perot’s phrasing) as jobs are pulled from the United States to these countries. From a purely theoretical perspective, there is little reason to think this will happen. Wages are determined by the marginal productivity of workers. Workers across countries are not identical, which is why firms do not necessarily pursue low wage workers. … Standard theory gives us good reason to doubt protectionist claims. But the protectionists present an alternative theory. We can test the empirical claims of the protectionists to see which theory better explains the empirical evidence.” (08/04/26)
“Last week, there was a lot of rumbling out of Washington about a massive escalation against Iran. … But the hand of mercy stayed the whip of calamity, or something. Trump on Sunday said the attack was off following interventions from our Gulf allies, who apparently haven’t been too hot on the idea of Iran wiping out their desalination plants and oil infrastructure in retaliatory strikes. … A remarkable cycle! But perhaps not so very remarkable. People have started to notice that the administration has a propensity for extravagant threats followed by equally extravagant walkbacks, often in concert with the weekly operations of the markets.” (08/04/26)
“Superforecasting is the art/science/sport of predicting the future – for example, who will win elections, which countries will fight wars, when key technologies will be discovered. Over the past few years, it went from an obscure academic subfield to a multibillion dollar industry in the form of prediction markets. More recently, AI superforecasters have come close to the accuracy of top humans, and their performance is rising rapidly. … Either humans have already come close to some fundamental limit on the predictability of world events – in which case AIs will plateau at or slightly above the human level – or the trend line will continue until AIs are far beyond top humans.” (08/03/26)
