The Mexican government, which has contributed heavily to Mexico having one of the world’s worst homicide rates, has announced it may seek legal action against the United States “for failing to protect its citizens after this weekend’s mass shooting in the border city of El Paso.”
In a statement yesterday, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard stated
One of the many unfortunate consequences of the politicization of America is the natural reaction for political factions to bunker down with dependable talking points in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy. There is perhaps no issue where this is more obvious than gun control, where the political discourse has effectively devolved into sharing mindless memes before even the most basic facts are known.
Following last weekend’s Gilroy, California shooting during which three victims died, media outlets have begun to suggest again that murder is a growing reality in the lives of Americans.
Powerline reports the results of a survey of ideological bias in philosophy. “The more right-leaning the participant, the more hostility they reported personally experiencing from colleagues, and, overall, the more left-leaning the participant, the less hostility they reported personally experiencing.” The hostility was no mere matter of dislike experienced by the conservatives. It carried over to hiring decisions and evaluating papers and grant applications.
Donald Trump in recent days has repeatedly attacked the city of Baltimore for its very low quality of life, denouncing it as “rodent-infested” and noting it has a very, very high homicide rate.
It’s difficult to find reliable stats on Baltimore’s rodent population per capita, but we can consult the FBI crime data on Baltimore’s homicide rate. When it comes to Baltimore being a haven of appalling violent crime, Trump’s not wrong.
The Keynesian policy of stimulating an economy through a temporary budget deficit relied on deceiving economic actors into thinking there was more demand in the economy than existed. Like all confidence tricks, it eventually fails. Governments end up with perpetual budget deficits, which trend larger with every unresolved credit cycle.
Economists don’t appear very interested in economics nowadays.
Indeed, they mostly seem interested in muscling in on other disciplines.
Yesterday, the Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee lowered the target federal funds rate by 25 basis points, dropping it to 2.5 percent. The Fed had last changed its target rate in December of 2018, when it raised the rate from 2.25 percent to 2.50 percent.
A study last year by Germany’s Halle Institute estimated a no-deal Brexit would cost 12,000 jobs in the UK, and 422,000 jobs in the other 27 EU members, of which 100,000 are in Germany and 50,000 in France. Recently, Ireland’s central bank forecast a loss of up to 100,000 jobs in the medium term in Ireland alone, on a no-deal. Clearly, the EU’s negotiators risk losing the wholehearted support of its two largest post-Brexit paymasters and others.
