Entries Tagged 'Economics and Investing' ↓

In my experience, as a librarian, book reviewer, book publishing consultant, and back-of-the-book indexer over forty years, it’s quite to rare ever see a non-fiction book that delivers 100 percent on its title.

Commander in Cheat © 2019 by Rick Reilly, a noted sportswriter, who has been on ESPN, lives up to its grand title.

For example, on page 91-92 Reilly asserts “Despite all the people, protesters, and press, around, Trump still cheated…”—at an event at one of Trump’s own golf courses.

A photographer who was shooting Trump told the author about it: “And I see a Secret Service agent kick the ball out of the rough [where Trump’s drive had landed the ball] …and [the agent] kicked it into the short stuff.” 

Celebrities, caddies, and countless others attest to the extreme degree to which Trump cheats both on and off the golf course. 

They also comment on Trump’s complete lack of etiquette on the golf course.  Continue reading →

Last week I noticed this term, “cultural capital,” in a magazine article about “The Handwritten Heritage of South Africa’s Kitabs”.

The subject of this article,”Kitabs,” refers to the Arabic word for “books“. The use of kitabs as a form of “cultural capital,” instantly attracted me.

I’ve spent a lifetime involved with some aspect of book-making; as a writer, paper-maker, poet, librarian, book-buyer, editor, book indexer, publishing consultant, an abstractor, a book and magazine reviewer, and a back-of the book index creator.

Today with the burning of Notre Dame leaving “a gaping hole in the heart of Paris,” it seems timely to try to define the term “cultural capital”. Continue reading →

This year the Spring 2109 issue of my alumni magazine from the University of Wisconsin-Madison printed a brief article titled, “What’s the Tiff About Tariffs?”

In this article, U.W. Economics professor, Menzie Chinn, alleged that Trump’s tariffs are failing to protect domestic U.S. industries from foreign competition.

In previous posts on Brucenomics, the earliest on December 2016, “The Emperor Has No Clothes,” and the latest on March 12, in “Word of the Day — Tariffs“, I argued that Trump’s tariffs were not likely to improve the U.S. economy.

In early 2018, when I first read about President Trump’s tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel, I worried his actions might well drive the U.S. into the arms of oligarch-owned companies in Russia. Previously we had bought the bulk of those two raw materials from Canada.

U.W.’s alumni magazine this year confirms my fears. Continue reading →