Fiscal Responsibility, Formalization, and the Modern Fiscal State

UN Maritime Boss Warns Ships To Avoid Hormuz As Transits Continue The International Maritime Organization warned Wednesday that the Strait of Hormuz remains too dangerous for commercial shipping, even as vessels continue to transit the narrow waterway. US Central Command said its latest round of strikes against Iranian coastal military targets concluded early Wednesday. Tehran retaliated with missile and drone attacks against US-allied Gulf states while continuing to disrupt some maritime traffic through the strait. Yet commercial ships are still transiting, suggesting Iran's ability to fully weaponize the maritime chokepoint is...

Study Shows Some Humans Are Evolving To Be 'Foxier' Authored by David Randall via RealClearScience, The latest report from David Reich’s genetics lab at Harvard is that “Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection across West Eurasia.” In other words, humans have been continuing to evolve in Europe and the Middle East for the last 10,000 years, with significant effect. Reich’s paper broadly substantiates the thesis of Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending’s The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution. Civilization hasn’t ended biological evolution, but proceeds alongside it.  Reich’s genome-wide association...

Trump's "Sock Puppet" By Philip Marey of Rabobank Summary The confirmation hearing of Fed Chair nominee Kevin Warsh by the Senate Banking Committee was a very partisan affair. In his prepared remarks, Warsh stressed that monetary policy independence is essential, but he does not believe that the operational independence of monetary policy is particularly threatened when elected officials state their views on interest rates. Warsh thinks the Fed must stay in its lane and avoid straying into fiscal and social policies. Warsh was walking a tightrope between convincing the Senate Banking Committee that he...