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Measles Resurgence Comes with High Costs
In 2021, a team of researchers published their tally of the economic costs imposed by a measles outbreak in Washington State spanning the first four months of 2019. There were 72 cases then, as opposed to 1001 confirmed cases so far in the current US outbreak, which is not losing momentum. The results are instructive.…
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Maybe It Won’t Be So Bad?
Yesterday, Kathleen Hays released an excellent video interview with macroeconomist Mickey Levy, a Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution. We recommend the interview for two reasons. First, Levy is a globally respected and experienced professional. Second, he offers scenarios regarding the impact of tariffs and does so with balance and not shrill alarmist warnings. He…
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Trump — 100 Days in a Single Chart
“I think the good parts are the Trump economy, and the bad parts are the Biden economy because he’s done a terrible job.” Donald Trump’s words, Meet the Press interview, May 4, 2025. Today, a single chart provides a view of Trump’s first 100 days. Readers may evaluate the statement made by the president for themselves. The chart…
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Tariffs: A Black Eye for Services
Unfortunately, the broad damage to the US economy caused by Trump’s tariff war and tariff talk extends to the vast services sector, which was thriving through 2024. The service sector includes just about anything that doesn’t come out of a factory, farm, mine, or oil well. It includes retailers, restaurants, and hotels, as well as…
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Tariffs, Trade, and the Coming Recession
At the Global Interdependence Center’s 2025 Monetary and Trade Conference last week, Jeremy Schwartz, Global Chief Investment Officer at WisdomTree, and I shared an in-depth discussion on his Behind the Markets podcast. The entire podcast is a valuable listen; our discussion starts at 30:19. I invite readers to listen. Here’s the program description: Host Jeremy Schwartz and…
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Canada and Cannabis
Canada is way ahead of the US in the cannabis industry. The US is still bogged down in fighting yesterday’s war, and the American federal government hasn’t reconciled the issues for banking. Meanwhile, more than half the states are raising money from marijuana, and medical usage is nearly nationwide. Biden failed miserably in amending the…
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Putin — Putler? Readers Respond
Headlines hit with the frequency of missiles. Russia’s war against Ukraine grinds on despite the Trump administration’s efforts at obtaining a peace favorable to Russia’s interests. Russia pounded Kyiv with missiles and drones overnight, killing at least eight people, wounding more than 70 and smashing buildings in the biggest attack on the Ukrainian capital this…
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Putin — Or Is It Putler?
Leon Aron, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Riding the Tiger: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the Uses of War, offered this assessment of Putin’s motives and US blind spots in an April 15 opinion piece published at POLITICO: The truth that has so far eluded Trump and his administration is that…
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Tough Times Ahead for County, City Budgets
Tough Times Ahead for County, City Budgets I spoke recently with Johannes Werner of WSLR+Fogartyville 96.5, a listener-supported nonprofit radio station serving Florida’s west coast, where I live. In the interview, we discussed tariff impacts and, as stocks have fallen, how things are different this time in the world of bonds, which are usually regarded…
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Stock Options and Trader Oasis
We will start this commentary with the definitions of two stock options trading strategies: the collar and the straddle. A collar is a stock options trading strategy used to protect against significant losses while also limiting potential gains. According to Investopedia (“The Collar Options Strategy Explained in Simple Terms,” https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/collar.asp), it involves three components: This strategy is useful when you are…