A detailed look at the Mueller Report. 

From American Affairs:

A new practice of production has emerged in all the major economies of the world. The simplest and most telling of its many names is the knowledge economy. It holds the promise of changing, to our benefit, some of the most deep-seated and universal regularities of economic life and of dramatically enhancing productivity and growth.

Its effects, however, have so far proved modest. Instead of spreading widely, it has remained restricted to vanguards of produc­tion, employing few workers. Entrepreneurial and technological elites control it. A handful of large global firms have reaped the lion’s share of the profits that it has yielded. It appears in every part of the production system; the habit of equating it with high-technology industry is unwarranted. In every sector of the economy, however, it remains a narrow fringe, excluding the vast majority of the labor force. Even though its products are used ever more widely, its revolutionary practices continue to be quarantined.

The true character and potential of the new practice of production remain disguised: by virtue of being insular, the knowledge economy is also undeveloped. The technologies with which it is most recently associated, such as robots and artificial intelligence, have riveted worldwide attention. Nevertheless, we have barely be­gun to grasp its significance for economic and social life or gained insight into its possible futures.

The established body of economic ideas is useful and even indis­pensable but also insufficient to an understanding of these problems. Received economic theory leaves us short of the insights that we need to guide the institutional and policy changes required to take us from the insular knowledge economy that we have to the inclusive one that we need. The effort to think through the agenda of an inclusive vanguardism prompts us to reassess the alternative futures of economics as well as the alternative futures of the economy.

By Patricia Cohen @ NYTimes.com, July 4

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — A widening income gap and sagging social mobility have left dents in the American dream. But the belief that anyone with enough gumption and grit can clamber to the top remains central to the nation’s self-image. And that could complicate Democratic efforts to frame the 2020 presidential election as a referendum on a broken economic system.

Americans, who tend to link rewards to individual effort, routinely overestimate the ease of moving up the income ranks, while Europeans — citing an unfair system, inherited wealth and sticky social classes — consistently underestimate it, surveys have found.

For moving from the bottom of the income ladder to the top, the South offers the worst odds in the United States. But it’s also the region where people are most optimistic about the prospects. “Fifteen to 20 percent?” guessed Vicki Winters, a retired contract specialist at the Defense Department who lives with her husband, George, in a predominantly white Huntsville suburb.

The actual chances of making that climb in Alabama are a shade above 5 percent. Nationwide, they are less than 8 percent. And in Madison County, where the Winterses live, the odds that a child will escape poverty are among the lowest in the nation.

The county’s dismal ranking is in some ways surprising given Huntsville’s reputation as a dynamic and growing technology hub centered on NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the Army Aviation and Missile Command. It has an unemployment rate below 3 percent, is close to a string of colleges and universities and has a business-friendly profile [....]

Listening to CNN TV live right now: Is centered in Ridgecrest/Bakersfield /the Mojave, so L.A. feels it but is okay. 150 or more aftershocks so far. Not on San Andreas fault. No fatalities reported.

By Emily Shapiro @ ABCnewsgo.com, July 4, 5:54 pm ET

A powerful earthquake with a 6.4 magnitude rocked Southern California on Thursday, marking the strongest earthquake in the region since 1999, officials said.  We will continue to have a lot of aftershocks," seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones warned at a news conference following the quake.

A magnitude 5 aftershock is likely, Jones said [....]

By Matt Nahum @ LawandCrime.com, July 3

One Trump tweet prompted U.S. District Judge George Hazel to call for a Wednesday afternoon emergency conference so he could understand what was going on. But he wasn’t the only one. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman–the judge whose decision to block the citizenship question was found to have been warranted by the Supreme Court–also called for an emergency conference depending on what happened during the Hazel conference.