There is a difference between expanding commercial ties with other countries irrespective of their ideological persuasion, preparing for the day when the US dollar will not be the reserve currency of the world or pursuing a foreign policy not beholden to Washington, and sending every signal that your affinities lie with powerful dictators with geopolitical ambitions, justifying the worst aspects of those regimes, facilitating their insertion in your region and directing a significant amount of public hostility against western liberal democracies. Brazil’s Lula da Silva understands the difference and has consciously opted for the latter.

The news that the Oakland Athletics have announced plans to leave Oakland for Las Vegas has been met with overall poor reactions from fans of the team and sports enthusiasts. A’s fans no doubt hold the team’s owner John Fisher primarily accountable. Still, many fans also blame the City of Oakland for not doing more to keep the team. While some are sad to see the team leave after such a rich history in Oakland, there is still a modicum of a silver lining, considering the economics of professional sports and their impact on their home cities.

Back in 2018, in his first testimony to Congress, Mark Zuckerberg was asked if Facebook had ever taken down a page at the government’s request. “Yes, I believe so,” said the Facebook CEO, without revealing what the page contained, which government officials had demanded its removal, and when it occurred. Zuckerberg also said, “I want to be careful here because our work with the special counsel is confidential.” Something similar was going on over at Twitter.

I am continually amazed at the amount of nonsense that I’ve been reading on the subject of moral hazard. Here are a few examples:

If you are in a crowded airplane, flying in coach, is it okay to lean your seat back? If you’re in the middle seat, should you just assume you get at least one armrest as your very own? And which one? Both? What if the schlub beside you won’t give up the space?

We are halfway through the U.S. government’s 2023 fiscal year. The U.S. Treasury Department’s Monthly Treasury Statement documenting the federal government’s tax collections and spending has both good and bad news about the federal government’s fiscal situation.

The outlook for Social Security worsened over the past year. According to the program’s trustees’ 2023 report, the main culprit for that change is the high inflation of the last two years. They expect that inflation will increase the cost of benefits and sap future economic growth.

The expression “artificial intelligence” seems fitting for any entity that does not take responsibility for its words. ChatGPT and the like remind us that machines are not human beings and human beings are not machines. Machines do not approve and disapprove as human beings do. Machines do not have sentiments. They do not have a conscience. They do not have moral responsibility.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney issued a powerful ruling recently when he found that the City of Phoenix, Arizona, had created, or contributed to, deplorable health and public safety conditions in a section of downtown Phoenix that has come to be known as “The Zone,” a sprawling homeless encampment that has rapidly grown to more than 1,000 people living on the streets. The judge agreed with the plaintiffs, who live and work in the area, that the city is responsible for abating the public nuisances that have resulted from the encampments and ordered it to “maintain its public property in the Zone in a condition free of (a) tents and other makeshift structures in the public rights of way; (b) biohazardous materials including human feces and urine, drug paraphernalia, and other trash; and (c) individuals committing offenses against the public order.”

The sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the response of regulators have reignited debates about federal deposit insurance and its dangers. First, some background information. On Friday, March 10, 2023, Silicon Valley Bank was shut down, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was appointed receiver. On the following Monday, the FDIC said in a press release that “today [the FDIC] transferred all deposits—both insured and uninsured—and substantially all assets of the former Silicon Valley Bank of Santa Clara, California, to a newly created, full-service FDIC-operated ‘bridge bank’ in an action designed to protect all depositors of Silicon Valley Bank. . . . All depositors of the institution will be made whole.”