The Democrats' Coming Civil War
At a time when the world press is obsessed with US president Donald Trump and his often imbecilic machinations, perhaps a more consequential struggle is taking place on the other side of the aisle....
View ArticleWill We See the End of Children?
What I’ve been reading: Saving the Protestant Ethic: Creative Class Evangelicalism and the Crisis of Work by Andrew Lynn.For those of you in the Indianapolis area, I want to highlight a great upcoming...
View ArticleLiberals Riding Anti-Americanism to Re-election Would Be Tragic
U.S. President Donald Trump’s imbecilic and unnecessary suggestion that Canada should become the 51st state has led some of my own family members — on my wife’s side, who are Canadian — not to travel...
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High-Speed Snail
The last few days have not been good ones for California’s high speed rail project.In fact, very very few days in its entire existence have been good ones for the odious debacle.Come to think of it,...
View ArticleIn Southern L.A., These Cities Are Making a Comeback
Like many older industrial towns, Paramount, a mostly Latino city of 50,000 located 18 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, has been through hard times. In 1981, the Rand Corporation described it...
View ArticleSurging LNG Exports Show US is a Global Natural Gas Superpower
Two decades ago, the accepted wisdom in the energy sector was that the US was running out of natural gas. In 2005, Lee Raymond, the famously combative CEO of Exxon Mobil, declared that “gas production...
View ArticleSLAPPed
My, oh my, how the worm has turned. Thirteen months ago, in the op-ed pages of the New York Times , University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann and his lawyer, Peter J. Fontaine, were...
View ArticleHousing Affordability Is Killing the Aussie Dream – And Our Birth Rate
The steady decline of fertility rates in Australia presents a multifaceted challenge with wide-reaching implications for the nation’s social, cultural, and economic future.Fertility rates are a...
View ArticleHow Federal Lands Can Be Used to Ease the Housing Crisis
Next to inflation, Americans ranked housing as their top financial concern in a Gallup survey last May. Since then, it’s gotten only worse. January home sales were down 5 percent from last year’s...
View ArticleWe Don't Need Policy When Practice Will Do
I’ve been a big fan of Alan Mallach of the Center for Community Progress for years. I first met him at a Cleveland Fed conference in Cincinnati in 2017, and later interviewed him at the University of...
View ArticleMine, Baby, Mine – Right Here in the USA!
President Trump’s Executive Orders have ended U.S. participation in the Green New Deal and Paris climate treaty. He’s also terminated mandates, programs and subsidies that would have changed our...
View ArticleThe Climate has Changed on Climate Change
Like the Marxist dialectic, or the predictions of the Gospels, the green movement has long seen its triumph as preordained. Yet sometimes the inevitable turns out to be not so.Over the past few years...
View ArticleThe Middle Class and Striver Divide
One of the important distinctions to understand in our society is between the middle class and the striver class.Being middle class is about building a life. It's primarily about the material elements...
View ArticleThe Massachusetts Backlash Against Forced Housing
The Town of Needham is a picture-perfect Boston suburb on the Charles River, replete with a classic downtown main street with a coffee shop, a commuter rail line to the city and old New England...
View ArticleCalifornia Tyranny, Part 2
Lawmakers in Sacramento recently upped the ante in their ongoing assault on local democracy in the Golden State. Earlier this year State Senator Scott Wiener (D–San Francisco) introduced a bill called...
View ArticleDoes Gavin Newsom Believe In Anything?
Gavin Newsom’s new podcast reveals not only a media-savvy politico seeking more exposure to a bigger audience. It also reflects a concerted drive by the onetime self-anointed leader of the #Resistance...
View ArticleThe Geography of Generative AI
A couple weeks ago, I purchased a new laptop. The laptop has Microsoft Copilot, the Microsoft AI tool launched in 2023. For kicks I thought I’d try it out. I asked Copilot to provide me with a draft on...
View ArticleIgnore the Bluster — Donald Trump is Not an Imperialist
US president Donald Trump’s MAGA brand of foreign policy has been treated with contempt and consternation by much of the world. He has incited the ire of neoliberal theorists like Francis Fukuyama, as...
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A Pro Family Housing Agenda
There is considerable concern about housing affordability in the United States. Housing is the most expensive element of the cost of living, which makes it an important issue to both households and...
View ArticleBlue States Could Be Biggest Beneficiaries of Trump’s Policies
Donald Trump is unlikely to win a popularity contest or an election in America’s deepest blue states. But, ironically, his administration could prove a long term boon to these places, where...
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