Blog Posts - Jay Evensen

Why AI will be good for the economy

5/22/2026

About once a generation, Harvard economics professor Richard Cooper told a podcast in 2018, “we have a near panic by some people because technology is destroying jobs.”
When I was a child, the worry was described in one word, “automation.” Machines were performing tasks much faster than humans, whose services no longer would be needed.
But the history of this worry goes back much farther, at least to the cotton gin.

Are Republicans finally standing up to Trump?

5/22/2026

Could this be the act that gives Republican members of Congress the backbone to stand up to the president?
Any clear-eyed review of President Donald Trump’s “settlement” providing $1.776 billion for him to reward people, possibly including those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 would see it as wrong, and that’s a big concern during an already contentious election year.
Remove politics and partisanship and it becomes easy to see.
A president sues the IRS, an agency he controls, then decides to settle out of court, essentially negotiating with himself. That settlement gives him the aforementioned sum to reward victims of “lawfare” unconnected to the suit — victims identified by a panel he controls. It’s a clear conflict of interest.

It's 2026; where's my self-driving car?

5/15/2026

A few weeks ago in Wuhan, China — a city that boasts thousands of supposedly driverless taxis — a whole bunch of them came to a stop on roadways, reportedly because of a “system malfunction” as Technology Magazine reported it.
These were taxis operated by a company called Apollo Go. While passengers could open their doors, many considered that ill-advised as they were stopped on high-speed highways. However, they could do nothing to get the cars moving again.

Tired old conspiracy theories get recycled

5/15/2026

Conspiracy theories seem to rise and gain traction quicker than a Stephen King novel these days.
But before you assign the crazy narratives associated with the recent attempted attack on President Donald Trump to just another chapter in this modern phenomenon, consider this:
The first assassination attempt against a president happened on Jan. 30, 1835. An out-of-work housepainter named Richard Lawrence approached President Andrew Jackson after the funeral of a member of Congress and tried to shoot him. Lawrence carried two guns. Both of them misfired, giving Jackson enough time to launch an assault of his own on Lawrence, using a cane. Others, including members of Congress who also were exiting the funeral, joined in.
It was one of the most extraordinary moments in U.S. history. And as theweek.com describes it, conspiracy theories soon followed.

Hantavirus is not the new COVID-19

5/15/2026

Illnesses on a cruise ship aren’t new. Often, people contract the Norovirus, also known endearingly as the vomiting bug.
But when a special strain of Hantavirus — one that can transmit from humans to humans — shows up and starts killing passengers, a lot of people start worrying that it might be early 2020 all over again.

Why Sweden is embracing capitalism

5/15/2026

The American left apparently hopes to make headway this year with the worn-out but catchy slogan. “tax the rich!”
You hear it in New York City, where newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to impose a "pied-à-terre" tax on second homes worth more than $5 million. You hear it now in Utah’s newly designed first congressional district, where Democrats have a new-found voice and are using it to say words like, “wealth tax.”
Where you don’t hear it, oddly, is in Sweden, which once was touted as an example of a nation that successfully combined democratic principles with socialist cradle-to-grave government programs

Why wealth taxes simply don't work

4/21/2026

Years ago, General Colin Powell taught me a quick and effective lesson about economics and investments.
I was in Washington for a meeting between the secretary of state and about 20 editorial writers from across the country. It was only a few weeks after 9/11. The State Department was on high alert, not only because of the terrorist attacks but because anthrax had been discovered in pieces of mail, including in the building where we met.
But Powell wanted to talk about an economic principle he laid out in four words: “Money is a coward.”

More diseases making a comeback

4/20/2026

Sometimes, current events can flip upside down in unexpected and disappointing ways.
Of all the editorial board meetings I’ve participated in during a 40-plus year career in journalism, only a few are seared into my memory banks. One of those was a visit in 2014 by Namala Mkopi, who was head of pediatric hematology in the Oncology Unit of Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
He wanted us to understand what the discovery of a vaccine against rotavirus, and the U.S. government’s help in distributing it, had meant to his country. Rotavirus is a highly infectious virus that causes severe diarrhea and vomiting in children under the age of 5, leading to serious dehydration and possible death.

Another budget-busting spending plan

4/20/2026

Donald Trump’s newly released budget proposal for fiscal 2027 sounds so much like those I’ve heard from presidents my entire life. Pick some rosy assumption about how the economy will grow and everything will seem just fine.
Nothing new here, but nothing reassuring, either.
In this case, the president assumes a 3% annual growth in the economy over the next decade.
Such assumptions rarely, if ever, come true, while the overspending continues to rack up record levels of national debt.
The Constitution puts Congress in the driver’s seat when it comes to federal revenue and spending. Presidents merely make requests that express policy priorities. This budget covers only about one-third of federal spending, focusing mainly on discretionary outlays.
Even so, the frustrating thing is that those requests never seem to focus on real spending reductions.

Today's young people need Artemis

4/10/2026

Watching the crew of Artemis II circle the dark side of the moon this week – traveling farther into space than any humans in history — made me feel like I was back in Mrs. Palmer’s fourth grade class at Longview elementary in Phoenix.
That’s quite a trick, considering it has been 58 years since I sat in that class. The memories from those days remain vivid in my mind, however, even if they are in black and white.
That was all the TV that was wheeled into our classroom could show us. It was December 1968. Color TV was a luxury beyond the school district’s budget. But Mrs. Palmer and other teachers at the school felt the mission of Apollo 8, which, like Artemis II, also orbited the moon but didn’t land, was more important for us than any math, science or reading lesson we might otherwise have received.

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