A must see --from Lawrence O'Donnell--Trump vs Musk--and Milton Friedman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyI8OZVmgbc

Besides the two inflated egos,bruising against each other that make conflict inevitable,

in this case Musk is right--it's the free market and free movement of labor that leads to high GDP and a high standard of living, but labor needs to have its rights too--and there can be tariffs on things like liquor and cigarettes which are not good for people to consume

and someone in the WH just can't say whatever he wants and shake up the world on the basis of pride, misguided and wrong ideas and whatever he feels like.

"Tongues don't have bones."

When these two titans clash, as we say in Burmese, when two water buffalo tussle,

the grass gets trampled.

--very sad--that Congress is so spinelss and maga is so clueless and self-serving--

but it seems to me a great revolution is brewing.

Believe it or not, when the 2021 coup took place, peaceful resistance lasted only a few days--then 2 young women were shot by government snipers, and the people rose up--first with 1776-style muskets that the British had allowed the Chin, on the border with India, to have.

Then they copied these muskets at home by hand.

Now they have drones and 3 D printers.

Remember when, Zelensky was asking for a no fly zone and to join NATO.

Yesterday, Western European countries announced billions for Ukraine--

World War III is already upon us--and this time USA is not strong, it's in fact weak.

China will not knuckle under--why should it? It's the 2nd largest economy in the world.

Japan and China too have started selling the US Treasury Bills they have been holding--Of course they will--yields have been going up which means prices are down, and why wouldn't these countries sell the bonds of a country that is failing and flailing and will decline more in future?

DJT likes to say he has "common sense" but he doesn't, nor does he understand--"how a pencil is made."

Wow--my two to five or six favorite mentors are now dead too--but wouldn't they be sad to see this.

As they are gone already, I will list them here in order of their appearance in my academic life.

Dr.Aye Hlaing--Economic historian--The Growth of the Burmese economy during the colonial period.

Dr.Ronald E.Findlay--International Trade Theory.

Dr. Hla Myint, co-founder with Arthur Lewis of Development Ecos. (I wasn't his student as I was a year too young, and Ne Win deported him back to UK)

Dr. Khin Maung Kyi--(I was never in his class either, as he was in the Commerce Department--but he wrote about centralized bureaucracies)

At the Univ of Pensylvania.

Dissertation chair--Dr Henry Teune--political scientist, systems.

Prof.Herbert Levine, Disstn Committee Chair-Economist, specialist on Russia and China.

My external examiner, whom I first went to see in 1984.

Dr. Josef Silverstein, Political Scientist,Burma expert.

He actually knew my father U Kaung, but he didn't tell me till long after I had gotten my degree. He had a business card he gave me--on which my father apologized for not being able to see him--My father died from injuries after a car accident in Calcutta. I should be better at keeping these things.

Your true mentors are those who have a lasting influence on you, and "taught you how to think.

I should also add my mother was one of the earliest economics graduates in Burma and she persuaded me to study economics, and of course I don't regret it, but between us, my true love is writing--and "making things."

Kyi May Kaung.

4-12-2025.

Kaung--oil on canvas--Crawling to Democracy.