Hearing Conservative acquaintances claiming the NYC Mayor Mamdani is a communist? Seriously? Anyway, decided to explore the terrain a bit.. here 'tis... metaeconomics.substack.com/p/mamdanis-e...

The recent Government shutdown made clear the real reason for it: The total disregard for the truth that the Big Beautiful Bill just continues to make The Plague of Inequality ever worse. See open.substack.com/pub/metaecon...

So, my latest Substack was stirred by the recent question: Would Elon Musk Work Harder for $1 Trillion Than $1 Billion? Well, likely not: See metaeconomics.substack.com/p/too-much-i...

Government shutdown, a stalemate between Republican Scroogists and Democrat(ic) Socialists. What do? Well, use DIT in Metaeconomics to find an empirical, science & humanities based research effort based answer, rather than continual spates over ideology ... see substack.com/home/post/p-...

So, the Democratic Socialist in the NYC Mayoral race was vilified, called a Communist (total disregard for truth claim) while the Scroogists in the race were applauded. What is going on? Well, it is a long standing problem... see open.substack.com/pub/metaecon...

What's up? Well, am baffled as to why Americans are choosing to support the building of an Authoritarian Nation --- started on January 20, 2025 --- in the tilt away from our Constitutional Democracy Nation? Why? I don't get it. substack.com/home/post/p-...

What's up? Well, just came back from a 15-day Danube River Cruise to many German cities, and, learning a great deal about the 1933-1945 turn to Authoritarian Nationalism which put Germany on a Road to Serfdom. So, the question, why is the US going down that Road? substack.com/home/post/p-...

The app asks "What's up"? Well, the total disregard for truth to achieve purpose is "up"... like the opposition to right-wing nonsense --- opposition to the total disregard for the truth... is to be oppressed, silenced, even using lethal force military to suppress truth. What is going on?

The economic chaos being stirred by "the Don" and Project 1500 (oops, typo, 2025) is using very bad, Zombie Economics. We need a new kind of economics... see www.metaeconomics.info/project-of-m...

Easier to read version of latest Substack substack.com/home/post/p-... ...like 6th grade! Try it. You might like it. And, a link in same to the deeper version...

Political Scientist Steven Levitsky, a researcher with credentials on the matter of the rise of Authoritarianism... recently declared American Democracy is going down fast... see open.substack.com/pub/metaecon...

Is the intellectual radical right actually legitimate? Well, not sure: It seems the goal is to take us back to the 1500s (like in Project 1500, oops, typo, 2025) with vertical power patrimonial systems, which obviously do not work. Why go back to that time? I do not get it.

So, Metaeconomics is about bringing the moral and ethical dimension back into view, as in an economics with the human and their ethics left in, like a colleague D. McCloskey says it. Here is a book by another a colleague on the matter of moral and ethical education in our schools...

So, what's up? Well, am wondering if reasoned Conservatives might join the Progressives in working to stop the neutralizing of our 249-year experiment in Constitutional Democracy? See open.substack.com/pub/metaecon...

Truth found using the scientific-method leads to consensus (e.g., people are at a point on the LGBTQ spectrum because of biology not choice; excessive greenhouse gases increase storm intensity). Said consensus is not an ideology. The ideology is from people unwilling to acknowledge the truth.

Given the accusations of leftist-ideology (including science is leftist) in play, it has become important to understand the frame from where it is coming ... well, it is coming from an intellectual tradition long-standing on the right ... see www.metaeconomics.info/post/radical...

Ideology without a foundation built using serious and systematic inquiry in science & humanities (esp. ethics) is simply an ideology in total disregard of the truth.

If one pays attention to scientific research, the empirical evidence makes clear that transgender identity is a phenomenon with biological underpinnings, not reducible to choice. So, anyone saying mean and cruel things about the "choices" of trans-people is ignoring/denying the science.

👇👇

With all the political claims flying around at the current time, please take a breath, and, then, use the Scientific Method to reflect on the claim ... the slide gives the essence of that proven Method. And, reminder: A Democracy can only survive with truth in the core of it ... just saying...

On the matter of tariffs: In particular, putting a tariff on an imported good is not about some kind of "inflationary" pressure. Rather it is about purposely raising prices, like the New Price = Old price + Tax (tariff). It is simply a price increase put in place by the Government.

The killing of the MN politicians was a political assassination by the Right: Don't let the Right frame the debate by controlling the rhetoric. And, don't use the Rhetoric of the Right, as it just enables same.

Intriguing how the killing of a Christian Nationalist (a brand of Religious Fundamentalism) selling that frame to college and university students is deemed a political assassination? So, here I had come to believe the US Constitution separated church and state... wrong again.

So, will someone please explain why the killing of the politicians in Minnesota was not labeled as a political assassination, while the killing of a religious fundamentalist who was touting religion was a political assassination? I thought church and state were separate? Just asking.

Wow. Well, evolutionary biology and evolutionary paleontology makes clear that a species without empathy self-destructs, does not make it through evolution. Just saying. It is just scientific reality, and, anyone denying the key role of empathy... well, it is what it is...

#FOTUS ignored the muder of Melissa Homan in Minnesota, but just ordered all US flags to be at half-mast for #CharlieKirk through Sunday.

Absolutely. Focus on the underlying source of all the BS.

rarely have I more acutely felt the dynamic by which Dems are held responsible for the rhetoric of every random left-leaning person on the internet and Republicans are not even asked to answer for their own personal words

JB Pritzker is always standing up for the people of his state. He is a great American. #USDemocracy

He joked multiple times about Paul Pelosi getting smashed in the skull with a hammer.

Bullshit. Trump and Trumpists and a disturbingly large slice of the modern Right are absolutely fine dehumanizing in far worse rhetoric an alarmingly long list of groups and individuals ideals. It’s their favorite thing to do. It gets them off. /1

Be aware. Don't be a frog in boiling water.

Yes, and canonical thinkers going all the way back to Socrates understood how extreme inequality destroys both economy and society ... see a review of the recent book on the Plague of Extreme Inequality ... www.metaeconomics.info/post/avoidin...

JB Pritzker: “The president knows so little about the government and he cares so little about delivering anything that talking to him is a useless endeavor. I’m about delivering for the people of my state, he’s about delivering for himself.“

Good. Had gotten weary of hearing only crickets.

If you’re wondering how much of what RFK Jr said yesterday about vaccines was true—almost none of it was. @FullerLab_UW is one of the most accomplished vaccinologists out there and her article is required reading to separate truth from falsehoods. theconversation.com/how-rfk-jr-s...

This is a huge warning sign.   Trump thinks he can make up his own facts. That’s why he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Now he’s telling us to wait a year for the “real numbers”?   His policies are tanking the economy. And no amount of mathematical gymnastics will change that.

It reeks of authoritarianism and (neo)fascism, but in someways it is even more dangerous, as in Americans like frogs slowly warmed on the way to being boiled in the pot as the rule of men is put in place on the way to a 1500s era styled patrimony. It has already happened in Orban-Hungary.

Yes, me too. I have a friend that to this day is living with the burden of crippling polio. It is time for people to Wake Up, as in WakeUPAmerica (WUPA hats), and, like Governor Newsom said in the August 14 interview with Political Historian Heather Cox Richardson, "call out the Bullshit."

So, will the line hold? Or, will "the Don" manage to make the military a personal police force? If accomplished, the experiment in the rule of law put in place by the Constitution will be over, and the vertical power rule of men patrimony will be installed, as per Project 1500 (typo, 2025).

I am not an expert in immigration policy and law, but, will claim some expertise in economics. So, I need a conservative to explain to me how spending upwards of $200 B to deport immigrants who are contributing $1.1-1.7 Trillion to the productivity of economy makes economic sense? Just asking.

I'm old enough to remember when polio put my friends into iron lungs. We dutifully lined up at school to get vaccinated. We eradicated the disease. We protected the common good and saved lives. What RFK Jr. is doing to public health in America is a disgrace.

Need to ask the Republican Party.

Vertical power rule of men patrimonialism was all the rage pre-1517, and was always incompetent, and often quite corrupt. So, progressive places shifted to horizontal power rule of law democracy in the 1700s. So, why are we going back to pre-1500s patrimony? substack.com/home/post/p-...

Yes, no Kings.. But, more accurately because we are still at core a democracy, it is no Pater. No Patrimony. And, it has become a Spaceship Earth wide problem, slipping a Patrimony in to neutralize the Democracy. The model is Orban-Hungary, who has already done it ... and Putin-Russia is admired.

Like Governor Newsom recently said, "... call out the Bullshit.” It is all BS. Expose the BS --- like emergency tariffs, Dems destroyed the economy, massive crime waves justifying US military in American cities --- all BS ... and "the Don" and regime lose all power.

Canonical thinkers going back to Socrates, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and others fully understood that trickle down led to one thing: The Plague of Extreme Inequality, which destroys economy & society. It needs to be avoided like the Plague.

Dems need to push for Optimal Inequality: Adequate incentives but with ethical compensation. So, pay less at the top, more down the ladder while preserving incentive. It is like the best compensation package for top performing sports teams: Optimal Inequality wins the game.

Conservatives see no purpose in the public good, which has to be purchased with tax dollars. If it does not produce $money in the private pocket it has no value: Paying taxes is viewed as a disease from which one needs "relief." Strange way of thinking.