Optimistic Skeptic

Higher Education?

Bob Gonzalez — Sat, 14 Nov 2026 14:47:11 GMT

Who’s afraid of what

Bob Gonzalez — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 00:40:47 GMT

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Democrat Economic Illiteracy?

Bob Gonzalez — Wed, 11 Nov 2026 13:05:52 GMT

CPI October 2026

Bob Gonzalez — Tue, 10 Nov 2026 15:47:39 GMT

Equal Justice for All

Bob Gonzalez — Sat, 07 Nov 2026 13:00:58 GMT

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My nightmare

Bob Gonzalez — Thu, 05 Nov 2026 14:08:19 GMT

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Yikes

Bob Gonzalez — Thu, 05 Nov 2026 12:35:22 GMT

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Art of the Deal?

Bob Gonzalez — Wed, 04 Nov 2026 12:29:31 GMT

If the blue wave was because Trump is an a’hole - understandable

If the blue wave was because our Country is adopting critical theory (socialism, identity politics, subjective truth) - we are in trouble.

From @ojvectivist on X re Vance’s explanation: Start with Vance’s method. A team of data analysts obsessing over electorate composition, pollsters asked to explain the loss after it happens, a survey handed to defecting voters asking what would bring them back. This is the technique of a pragmatist. A man of principle could not care less about polls. He cares about ideas and whether they are right or wrong, and he would rather lose every election in his lifetime doing the right thing than win a single one doing the wrong thing. He holds a standard, measures his actions against it, and knows before the returns come in whether he governed by it. Victory means nothing to him if the price is his principles, because a victory won by abandoning what is right is a defeat in everything that matters. That is not what is happening here. These men are asking the crowd what it feels because they have no idea what is true, then adjusting their convictions to match the answer. Ayn Rand named this method decades ago. When men abandon reason as their guide, the opinion survey becomes their substitute for thought.

Observe what the assessment leaves out entirely. Not one word about tariffs, a tax on Americans that the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional and the administration reimposed under a different statute, running through two years of roughly 6% cumulative inflation. Not one word about roughly 30 government equity stakes in private companies, which is socialism practiced by the party that claims to oppose it. Not one word about a brand new universal entitlement, two trillion dollar deficits, or a 40 trillion dollar debt. “Focus on cost of living” appears as a polling answer with no causal analysis attached, because the causal analysis indicts their own record. The most honest assessment somehow misses every policy the voters threw them out over.

Then Vance’s 4 conclusions which are out of context slogans which are meaningless as such. The reason we lost is the war. Half true and twisted. Hitting the regime that has waged war on us for 47 years was right and four decades overdue. What voters watched afterward was the goal line surrender, a so called deal championed by the appeaser Vance, who stood at Lake Lucerne praising the framework as the foundation for a final agreement while it waived Iran’s oil sanctions and released $12 billion in frozen assets to a regime left standing, with our forces still taking fire in the strait. The failure is not that we fought. The failure is that we paid the enemy and called it peace while they still shoot at us to this day. And buried at answer four is the actual agenda, change our relationship to Israel. This disgusting faction of the Republican party that cannot define socialism while its administration practices it has one firm conviction, pushing away the only free nation in the region, our one reliable ally against the theocracy we are trying to buy off, just as Obama did. At least Obama dropped the pallets of cash for all to see.

This is why Republicans and Democrats keep winning in alternating cycles while freedom loving Americans lose a little more freedom each time. Both parties govern by the same premises, spending, controls, entitlements, state stakes in industry. Neither offers an alternative, so voters punish whoever stands closest to the wreckage while the wreckage keeps growing.

The pollsters then measure the anger and recommend sharper messaging, and Walsh pronounces the measurement honest.

Honesty is the refusal to fake reality. An assessment that evades tariffs, socialism, and a bought off theocracy while blaming the one thing done partly right is not honest. It is a crowd reading performed by men who long ago stopped checking their premises against anything but each other.

Insane

Bob Gonzalez — Wed, 04 Nov 2026 03:46:04 GMT

The new Democrats (2)

Bob Gonzalez — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 21:37:29 GMT

The new Democrats

Bob Gonzalez — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 21:26:29 GMT

This is normal

Bob Gonzalez — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 21:25:35 GMT

Oooops ACA design blowing up

Bob Gonzalez — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 00:13:48 GMT

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https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/11/as-predicted-the-aca-exchanges-seem-not-to-be-stable.html

Hope not politically naïve like husband

Bob Gonzalez — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 02:19:43 GMT

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Europe - Government > Private Sector

Bob Gonzalez — Sun, 25 Oct 2026 15:10:35 GMT

From Luis Garicano

The biggest, and stupidest, myth in European politics, particularly popular in France, is that Europe suffers the consequences of “austerity” and “neoliberalism”. In the biggest 5 countries in Europe, more than half of the population makes its income from the state, less than half from the private sector. This is what makes the problem of reducing the welfare state so impossible: more than half of the voters are net recipients. No surprise that Italy’s budget has not been balanced in 100 years, France’s in 50 years (ooh la la, l’austérité!!):

-France: 30 million from the state versus 21m private sector workers. State spending is 57% of GDP, taxes more than half the economy. The budget hasn’t been balanced in the lifetime of most French (since 1974).

- Germany: 35 million adults from the state, versus 34 million from the private sector. 10% of the population is registered as severely disabled. Public spending is over half of GDP. Germany has had a continuous budget deficit since 2019.

-Italy: 23 million from the state, versus 20.5 million private-sector workers. Public spending is 51% of GDP. Italy has had a budget deficit every year since 1925, for 100 years.

- Spain more people get their income from the state since 2024: 18.21 million from the public sector versus 17.9 million people working in the private sector. Since 2025, Spain also had more government employees than self-employed workers (autónomos) for the first time in history. State spending is at 45%, budget has not been balanced since 2007.

- UK: 54% of households now receive more in state benefits than they pay in taxes. State spending is 44.5% of GDP, taxes (40%) are at their highest since 1950, the budget hasn’t been balanced since 2001, and 1 in 5 new cars is paid by the government through a bizarre state disability scheme (Motability).

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The Grumpy Economist

Saving the Welfare State

I was invited to the “Festival Internazionale dell’ Economia” in Turin, to speak about inflation and debt. The grand topic of the conference is “Saving the welfare state” (“Salvare lo stato sociale”). So, I added some typically grumpy comments on that topic…

15 days ago · 94 likes · 28 comments · John H. Cochrane

The Two Cents

This time would have to be very different.

Every fall, when I teach my Capital Markets class, we think about how we can back out reasonable estimates of expected returns on stocks from stock prices…

15 days ago · 31 likes · 3 comments · Hanno Lustig