The older I get the more I think that while I’m not a communist. I may be a Marxist (Karl as opposed to Groucho, though I did like Groucho’s chutzpah). Marxism is the body of social, economic and political theory that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels developed in the mid-1800s. It rests on a few core ideas. Marx’s “historical materialism” holds that the way a society produces its goods and services shapes everything else: its…
Oligarchy is a form of government or power structure in which control rests with a small group of people, usually distinguished by wealth, family, military power, or corporate influence, rather than with the public at large. The word comes from the Greek oligos (“few”) and arkhein (“to rule”). In modern usage it often describes systems that may be formally democratic but where a wealthy elite has outsized sway over policy and institutions. Post-Soviet Russia’s business…
Texas toast is extra-thick sliced white bread, usually cut about twice the normal thickness that’s buttered (often with garlic) and griddled or toasted until golden outside and soft inside. Who doesn’t love a slice of Texas toast? It’s commonly served alongside barbecue, chicken-fried steak, or fried chicken (Raising Cane’s made it famous), and the extra thickness makes it great for French toast or hearty sandwiches. Most food historians trace it to Texas diners and drive-ins…
We got our California mail-in ballots yesterday, so Kim and I decided to take the time to work through the long two-page, four-sided ballot together. We needed all the help we could get to work through it and we had the extensive voter information pamphlet (more a booklet than a pamphlet) as well as our good friend Claude to help us work through the issues. The first page was pretty easy because it was the…
I recently saw some typical projections about what college majors were drawing the highest compensation three years out from graduation. It looked pretty math-heavy to be sure. I’ve looked into it further and found that while there’s no official dataset that tracks pay exactly three years after graduation, the closest are the New York Fed’s early-career figures (grads aged 22–27, roughly 0–5 years out) and Department of Education data covering about four years out. Both…
The midterms are Tuesday, November 3, a month out from today. Democrats are favored to take the House, and the Senate is close to a coin flip, with a slight edge for the Democrats. While I say a Paul Krugman podcast today that suggested that the House odds were now at 99% in favor of Democrats, the prediction markets, which are the most objective source of sentiment, give Democrats about 85% odds of winning the…
There are several specific things on my mind this morning regarding authoritarianism. Let’s start with a proper definition. Authoritarianism is a system of government in which power is concentrated in a single leader or small elite that isn’t meaningfully accountable to the public. It typically limits political freedoms, suppresses opposition, and restricts independent institutions like the press and courts, while often still allowing some private economic and social life. It differs from totalitarianism, which goes…
One of the advantages of traveling internationally is the fact that I get to reconnect with CNN, which is the new source of choice in hotels around the world. This morning I am watching an analysis of the disaster in Nepal and it’s all taking on an interesting new angle. The foreign minister of Nepal was just interviewed by Anderson Cooper and the point he was making was that the billions of dollars needed by…
As I prepare to leave Switzerland, I was listening to CNN as they interviewed a Swedish academic on his explanation of the political rebalancing underway in Sweden. It became a discussion of what the Swedes care about as they consider the issues most relevant to themselves. In many ways. Sweden ranks near the top of most global prosperity measures. According to the Legatum Prosperity Index, Sweden was ranked 2nd globally in 2023 with a prosperity…
The big topic on CNN this morning is an essay by Dario Amodei of Anthropic. On Saturday (Sept 12), Dario published an essay called “We Must Pace the Frontier,” where he argued the industry must slow the pace at which it improves AI model capabilities. This doesn’t mean stopping development altogether, but regulating it with high priority. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s approach has been consistently deregulatory and “pro-industry”, favoring a light-touch, federally uniform framework over state-level…