Twice this year the media has focused our attention on the impending showdown in Congress as lawmakers try to avoid a government shutdown and pass bills that fund the government to function for yet another short period. It sometimes helps to model these real world political actions to focus on what the underlying issue might be, and perhaps enable the making of predictions that one might expect to follow in such settings. Game theory allows us to do this. In a typical game

A Bloomberg report released yesterday stated that the recent plunge in stock prices wiped out $114 billion from the fortunes of the world's richest. Among the victims, Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos. This dismal performance in the stock market coming off the heels of the Tax Reform law passed in December which promises a windfall of gains to the rich through huge tax cuts and other benefits is intended to ultimately trickle down and benefit the economy as a w

The jobs report for January has been released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the labor market continues to reflect the ongoing economic boom as we begin 2018. Unemployment rate held steady at 4.1% while 200,000 jobs were added to the economy. Another important statistic showed a historic rise - wage growth accelerated to its fastest year on year pace since June 2009. This is good news and lends credence to the narrative of the US economy operating at full employment

In his first State of the Union address President Trump, among other things, called on Congress to send him a bill for $1.5 trillion in spending on public works. He further emphasized that this should be works that foster self reliance and private sector initiatives that attracted local spending. In a traditional sense this is one of the hallmarks of what the role of government might involve in an otherwise private market economy. The market is sometimes cast as this mechanis