It was great to be able to spend this past weekend with so many friends in Auburn at this year’s Supporters Summit!

Photos from the event are available here.

Nicolás Maduro’s recent visit to China has been highly criticized because it was done in the worst of the Venezuela’s crisis. Almost 4 million people have left this country in recent years — a country that is ranked on the 2018 Misery Index as the most miserable country of the world. Hyperinflation is destroying the hope of millions of Venezuelans that for many reasons continue living there and suffering the misery that socialism has achieved.

Another name for the neo-Marxism of increasing popularity in the United States  is cultural Marxism.” This theory says that the driving force behind the socialist revolution is not the proletariat — but the intellectuals. While Marxism has largely disappeared from the workers’ movement, Marxist theory flourishes today in cultural institutions, in the academic world, and in the mass media.

National Public Radio recently broadcast a segment on the concept of the open office. When I went back to my office I planned to listen to the entire segment and when I Googled it, there were multiple hits to NPR segments. One might suspect that NPR has some disgruntled reporters working in the open office format.

According to mainstream thinking, economic slumps are caused by various shocks. This means that these slumps are caused by unexpected events, which by implication are not known beforehand.

Obviously if reasons behind various shocks cannot be established beforehand it makes sense to look at various symptoms of the emerging economic slump. Based on these symptoms the economic doctors could decide on the medicine required either to fix the economy or to prevent it from collapsing into an economic slump.

Hurricane Florence has left a huge swath of devastated communities in its wake. Some estimates predict more than 750,000 homes in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia will sustain flood and wind damage, with reconstruction costs of up to $170 billion possible.

For most, dealing with their insurance company to reimburse part of their damage repair costs will be a vital part of the process.

From endorsing Brazil’s military regime to fashioning himself as the Brazilian Donald Trump, Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro has a flair for generating controversy.