Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

  Tried to make a regular post here. Going all haywire. C'est la vie.     

 Back in late January I wrote here about a book by David A. Phillips that examined efforts at re-organizing the World Bank.  Phillips, who worked at the Bank for 14 years himself, looks with especial care at a 20 year period, 1908 - 2008. He ends up quite disenchanted.   I continue to read the book in small pieces. In chapter 8, Phillips quotes Gavin and Rodrik thus: "There is something more than a little schizophrenic about an agency that preempts potential private lenders because they are allegedly too risk averse (a main rationale for Bank lending), then means that its loans should be senior to any other, thereby shifting most of the risk onto private lenders."  Yes, you might say,  "rings true, but who are Gavin and Rodrik?"  The answer, M. Gavin and D. Rodrik are the co-authors of an article in the American Economic Review in 1995, "The World Bank in Historical Perspective." That's what I get from a footnote in Phillips book.  Can I dig a li...

  I indicated in a late January post in this blog what I thought the Supreme Court was going to do about tariffs.  I said that it would likely affirm the decisions in the courts below striking down the tariffs, but that as to remedy it would find a way to allow the administration to avoid rebates.  I was right as to the questioning of the permissibility of the sweeping tariff powers the President sought to assign to himself here. I was wrong as to remedy.  As you surely all know by now, the Supreme Court by a 6-3 reading upheld one of the central pillars of our constitutional system, the unique role of the legislature in matters of taxation. And noted the obvious point that tariffs ARE taxation.  What did it say about remedy? Nothing, really. It left the matter open for further litigation, with the implication (I submit) that the importers who have been paying these charges since "Liberation Day" have a claim. The litigation is already underway. THAT I did not e...