Today’s Water Cooler: Mueller report and open thread.
Thursday, October 2, 2025
Should “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg’s Small Donor Contribution Numbers Go Unchallenged?
Small donations and small donors are not the same.
Report: Going 100% Renewable Power Means a Lot of Dirty Mining
Looking at some of the non-CO2 costs of increasing renewable energy production and distribution.
Embedded Internationalism: The Only Way to Fight the Global Oligarchy
Rethinking internationalism as a way to counter the power of a rootless global elite.
Can Antitrust Law Rein in Facebook’s Data-Mining Profit Machine?
Facebook engaged in an elaborate bait and switch on user data: Privacy disappeared when competition did. Laws governing competition could change that.
2:00PM Water Cooler 4/17/2019
Today’s Water Cooler: Buttigieg and national service, Gravel outpolls Gillibrand, Harris in South Carolina, Sanders,Trump, Warren, Pelosi vs. AOC, AOC and Green New Deal, housing, international trade, retail trade, Zuckerberg (again), CO2, geoengineering, Lake Erie, MMT, Tiger Woods, class warfare
Greening Monetary Policy
Monetary policy favors carbon-intensive industries. Time to stop doing that.
Festering Brexit
Even though the Good Friday/Easter weekend is coming up and Brexit matters are thus in low gear, the UK still seems stuck in its pattern of confusing motion with progress. A short list of updates: Labour-Tory talks still going nowhere. I’m not sure it would be progress even if the negotiations were going somewhere, since […]
‘The Greed of UnitedHealth Is Killing Americans’: Progressives Hit Back as Insurance CEO Bashes Medicare for All
The health care industry’s first salvo against Medicare for All did not go well.
Americans Have No Idea What “Freedom of the Press” Means
Why First Amendment “freedom of the press” protections are far broader than most Americans realize.
2:00PM Water Cooler 4/16/2019
Today’s Water Cooler: China trade, Q1 Democrat fundraising, Biden, Buttigieg, Sanders (FOX, CAP, taxes), Trump, Pelosi, reparations, industrial production, housing, AirBnB, Huawei, Kropotkin on climate, ridesharing and traffic fatalities, dairy farming, Game of Thrones, cats and dogs
Why China’s Current Account Balance Approaches Zero
China’s once-hefty current account surpluses are falling away. What are the implications?
