Author: Norman Leahy

During the Soviet Union’s heyday, “Kremlinology” was the favorite game among those whose job was to watch the personal and palace intrigues of the top party brass. The current murderous Russian autocrat, 70-year-old Vladimir Putin, has brought Kremlinology back to life. Western analysts are trying to figure out the most likely scenario not only for whether Vlad stays in power, but who might replace him (and how the change occurs). Writing in Foreign Affairs, Johns Hopkins Prof. Sergey Radchenko says there’s a spotty record of Russian leaders being removed ahead of their time (otherwise known as a coup). But that…

Government and law enforcement have an insatiable appetite for private data they use, allegedly, to find bad guys, protect communities and generally be quiet heroes to us all. Oh, and they can buy that data in bulk on the private market, giving them the ability to conduct mass surveillance while avoiding the constitutional niceties of getting warrants. But the great gaping data maw extends well beyond cops and bureaucrats. The military is a big play in the surveillance game, too. As Vice reports: Multiple branches of the U.S. military have bought access to a powerful internet monitoring tool that claims…

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was created in the wake of the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74 to prevent, or at least reduce, the economic damage were such an event to happen again. Since then, the SPR has been something of a toy politicians of both major parties have used to justify or “pay for” other government programs. But the Biden administration’s recent and substantial use of the SPR has created a different problem: the reservoir is running dry. According to The Wall Street Journal: …the Strategic Petroleum Reserve declined by nearly 7 million barrels in the week ended Sept. 16,…

Economists generally believe a recession of some sort is in America’s future. The great unknowns are when it will happen and how bad it will be. Keeping in mind that economists are not soothsayers, they can still raise useful questions about what central banks like our own Federal Reserve are doing right now to fight inflation. The BlackRock Investment Institute writes that the Fed’s inflation struggle is one that involves trade-offs between growth and price stability. But the Fed and its global counterparts aren’t really interested in talking about what those trade-offs are, let alone the very real costs they…

I’ve written a lot about inflation in this space. But sometimes, the most powerful way to show…

European governments are playing with economic fire as they actively consider all manner of…

President Joe Biden has stoked the fires of speculation with his statement on…

The energy shock that has roiled global oil and gas markets has done one positive thing: It’s exposed how politicians, activists and the green lobby successfully undermined investment in the fossil fuels sector. Part of it was starry-eyed optimism that a green revolution was right around the corner. Part of it was pure politics, particularly in Europe. And some was just old-fashioned cynicism – the belief that as long as the Russian gas flowed freely and cheaply, there was no downside or cost to demonizing Big Oil. As Juliet Samuel writes in The Telegraph: …sometime around 2014-16, regulators, lawyers and…

Governments and law enforcement have long chafed at the constitutional requirement to obtain a warrant before conducting searches. But what about private sector programs that sweep-up massive amounts of private data, without regard for innocent, guilt or even a crime? Would law enforcement be able to buy this data, monitor people without their knowledge and certainly without those pesky warrants?  That’s what they have been doing for some time. The Electronic Frontier Foundation investigated the practice, and what they found was astounding: A data broker has been selling raw location data about individual people to federal, state, and local law…

In response to spiraling energy prices that threaten to plunge their economies into a deep recession, European governments are embracing controls on prices and subsidies to energy users. This is economic snake oil, and will only make already precarious conditions much worse. As Bloomberg’s Javier Blas writes: In the UK, incoming Prime Minister Liz Truss is drafting a plan to freeze utility bills, rather than allow the 80% increase proposed by the energy regulator. Other European countries are mulling a similar approach, or offering energy rebates and subsidies that will have much the same impact.In replacing the market as leveler…