Mendacity/Policy

Nearly 2,000 people who claim to be Columbia University alumni have signed a letter pledging to “withhold all financial, programmatic, and academic support” from the institution until it meets the demands of anti-Israel protesters, claiming that $77 million in donations is at risk.

***

Man had entered the Nineteenth Century using only his own and animal power, supplemented by that of wind and water, much as he had entered the Thirteenth, or, for that matter, the First. He entered the Twentieth with his capacities in transportation, communication, production, manufacture, and weaponry multiplied a thousandfold by the energy of machines.--tuchman

***

Intel has a “chief government affairs officer”

***

Mendacity/Policy

Mendacity continues to be policy.

Ms. Katherine Tai, the U.S. Trade Representative, responded to a question about the higher prices caused by Trump’s tariffs, saying “That link, in terms of tariffs to prices, has been largely debunked.”

Well, how do tariffs work, then? Why do we do them?

Tariffs protect domestic producers only by raising the prices of protected goods and services. Raising the price makes a more expensive domestic product more competitive against a cheaper import. That's the purpose of the tariff. It is about as close to 'law' as economics has and is reiterated in every textbook, lecture, and teaching encounter.

Yet the U.S. Trade Representative says this universally accepted connection has been 'debunked.'

What could she possibly mean?