This is going to a long thread on two issues I think are related, the challenge of having a national shared narrative in America and the nature of the political landscape that led to Trump's victory.

I'm 70 years old and lived in America until three years ago. I have a PhD 1/ in economics. I've been interested in American foreign and domestic policy for 55 years. For much of that time, the central domestic policy issue was the size of government. This was the divide between left and right. The left wanted higher taxes, bigger government and more 2/

I've just returned from a few days in Prague, my first time there. Such a beautiful city. And we heard amazing jazz and much other good music generally. It's weird to be a Jew there. While there is a remnant of Jews still living there you can't help but be struck by the 1/ museum-like nature of Jewish life. Yes, there are active synagogues built hundreds of years ago in Old Town but they are hardly vibrant. Of the 120,000 Jews of what is now the Czech Republic, about 80,000 were murdered by the Nazis. The current population is something 2/

In about an hour, Israel is prepared to receive 13 of the 240 or so kidnapped children, women, and men. It is unbearable to us here, that we are now waiting for a band of wicked and cruel people to keep their promise, and knowing that if they fail to do so, as cruel as that 1/ will be, that it will not even vaguely approach the cruelty they have already inflicted on so many. People talk about the need for children being held in Gaza to be reunited with their families. But for some of them, there is no family to be united with--the monsters that 2/

For those of you who care or who are interested, life here is something of an emotional roller coaster. Good news when something inspiring happens, people pulling together here day after day, helping each other. And then there are bad days, soldiers killed or little progress 1/ in getting, or even finding, hostages. But what is hard to remember is that life is simply heavy here at this moment. It's not the best word but it captures something of what I think almost every Israeli is feeling. It feels like we are wearing an invisible lead cape, invisible2/

When I was young, in graduate school, I believed that people were rational and that rationality was closely tied to self-interest. Surely, knowing what was true and what was not true would make you happier and give you a better life. People, I believed, might make mistakes, 1/ of course but they would learn from their mistakes and iterate toward better, more accurate decisions that served their interests.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that this rationality did not work equally well in every aspect of life. In political behavior, I came to 2/

An EconTalk update. In the aftermath of the October 7th pogrom here in Israel, I've managed to keep up the weekly release schedule for EconTalk. I am not sure that will continue to be the case but I want you to know that that is my intention. I am busy, but not overwhelmed and1/ I have been able to keep up with scheduling new episodes and doing the reading to prepare. But I do find myself increasingly preoccupied both with the war and the rise in antisemitism around the world. Many topics I once found interesting, are now much less interesting. A book 2/

The aftermath of October 7 is a test for the West and for all open societies—societies that purport to tolerate and even embrace diversity of opinion, culture, and political opinion. Societies that nominally believe in freedom of speech and the press. Such societies are now 1/ at a crossroads and must think about the direction they wish to head. Reasonable people can disagree about who is responsible and in what amounts for the quality of civilian life in Gaza before October 7. Reasonable people can disagree about whether pressure should be put on 2/

The deepest insight for understanding the lenses people use to understand the world comes from @KlingBlog in his superb, concise book, The Three Languages of Politics. Simple idea. Liberals see the world as a struggle between oppressor and oppressed. Conservatives see the 1/ world as a struggle between civilization and barbarism. Libertarians see the world as a struggle between government coercion and personal liberty. Kling's insight helps makes sense of what is going on right now in Israel and Gaza. Before October 7, liberals sympathized with 2/

These are some thoughts after seeing a performance of The Merchant of Venice here in Jerusalem and after reading @darahorn's provocative take on the play in People Love Dead Jews.

Is The Merchant of Venice an antisemitic play? Thoughtful people can make a decent case 1/ on both sides of the question.

I want to get at the answer by asking a different question. Is Shylock a sympathetic character?

One answer is yes. He is spit on. He is abused by the letter of the law to deprive him of revenge. He is abused to the point of absurdity. Not only 2/

This is one of my favorite insights of economics but it may take a bit to get to the punchline. So buckle up.
When I first arrived in Israel as an immigrant, a couple of things struck me about the restaurants. First, they seemed pretty expensive. And second, the service 1/ was not very good. Eventually, I realized two things. First, there is a 17% VAT in Israel. That is going to push up prices in the restaurant. But that's not the interesting part. The interesting part is the service. How does the "bad" service manifest itself? The server takes 2/

One of the best insights of economics is that there is more than one way to skin a cat. Alternatives matter. This, in many ways is the essence of Coase's social cost paper. This seems relevant for who should get the vaccine first vs later. There are many ways to stay safe. 1/n Getting the vaccine is one way that appears to be pretty reliable. An alternative way to stay safe is to self-quarantine. For the elderly who don't get out much, they are already self-quarantined. Best way to protect them would be to vaccinate the people who work with them. 2/n

We are in the middle of a rather extraordinary, imperfect, set of social experiments. About three weeks ago, various states began "opening up." Some of this was due to relaxing of mandated restrictions. Most, I suspect, was due to people who were simply tired of sheltering 1/n in place. They wanted a drink with friends. Or to go to the beach. Or a return to some kind of normalcy. In many states, it appears that mask-wearing and social distancing was not so common. Oblivious of fear of a second wave or an extension of the first one, people began to 2/n

The recent 5-4 Supreme Court decision upholding California's limits on attendance at religious services is a horrible precedent. Allows Trump or any governor to limit protests in the name of "public health." The First Amendment is first for a reason. Right now, thousands of 1/n people are in the streets risking spreading the pandemic for what they see as a higher cause. That urge should be honored broadly and should not be subject to government control. Most religious services shut down without government mandate. That is the right way to 2/n

The @nytimes reports that a study has found that if lockdown had been implemented a week earlier in the US, 35,927 death would have been averted. Again no decimal point, but when you're reporting on deaths, carrying out to the last digit is the moral equivalent. Not 1/n "about 36,000" but 35,927. The authors do recognize that getting to this number requires some assumptions: "We note these counterfactual experiments are based on idealized hypothetical assumptions. In practice, initiating and implementing interventions earlier during 2/n

I am increasingly frustrated by people who blame Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek, and neoliberalism for the state of the world as if their pitifully ineffective counter-revolution actually triumphed. In fact, that counter-revolution failed almost completely, as I tried to 1/n chronicle in this piece. medium.com/@russroberts/t…
But I hadn't thought about why the people who hate Friedman and Hayek's ideas keep using them as scapegoats when the evidence is so meager for the success of free-market classical liberalism. Here's a thought. Maybe it's not 2/n

Your daughter/son has a choice. Option A is to major in economics , learning the models of micro/macro--S and D, consumer theory, the firm, game theory, asymmetric info, social welfare theory, externalities, IS-LM, real business cycles, theories of inflations, etc. The topics 1/n that are tested on the AP Econ exams. Option B is to read deeply in the ideas of Smith and Hayek--emergent order, the power of specialization, non-mathematical theories of growth--gaining an appreciation for the imperfections of markets and how decentralized trial and error 2/n

There is a lot of talk about how after this virus passes, whenever that may be, we have to "build a better world." This was a theme in a number of mock commencement addresses that the @WSJ collected in yesterday's edition. There is a temptation to dismiss this as an 1/n empty platitude. But I actually think it is dangerous, at least in the way most people think of "a better world." What most people mean by a "better world" is better outcomes on some set of measures of well-being, justice, fairness, etc. And by "build" they mean using 2/n

Governors are saying that Federal Govt needs to take the lead in producing and allocating PPE (masks, ventilators, etc). One analogy is to aircraft carriers in WWII. Connecticut didn't make their own! Not a good analogy. And as always, this issue is more 1/n complicated than it might appear at first glance. There is enormous variation right now in the incidence of the disease. Some states (NY, NJ, LA, etc) coping with huge case loads and demand for PPE. Others, not so much. Some of this is bad luck. Some is 2/n

A serious thought after seeing Come From Away (CFA) for the second time. Didn't cross my mind the first time but a lot has happened in the last two years in my reading and thinking. CFA is a musical about 9/11, when 38 planes were re-routed to a small... town in Newfoundland, a town called Gander with a population of 9000 because US air space was closed. Suddenly, unexpectedly, 7000 people showed up needing a place to sleep and food and phones and much more. Love and kindness along with other material needs. And the people...

Another interesting moment of human contact and a very small amount of redemption at the airport today. I'm on the Dulles shuttle having survived the TSA gauntlet and headed to my gate. Two women who seem to be traveling together board the shuttle and one of them realizes... that she left something on the bench. She races back, grabs her wallet (!) but before she can get back on someone shouts at her--you dropped something!--and I see her turn back to pick up her passport of all things. But the door closes and she is left outside. But her two...

I went downtown today on the Metro to meet Dan Klein for an EconTalk episode at the DC Hoover Institution offices to record with Dan. I park my car in the Metro lot and get on the parking garage elevator with a rolling suitcase that has my recording equipment. A woman is... on the elevator absorbed in her phone and steps out as I step in, thinking she's on the floor for exiting to the trains. But the elevator has only stopped for me on the 4th floor so she steps back on. When we reach the exit floor she heads out quickly. There's a very heavy...