It's just talk

One bit of conventional 2016 campaign wisdom is that Bernie Sanders has pushed Hillary Clinton far to the left. It seems so obvious that even the socialists are celebrating.
Like a lot of conventional wisdom, it's partly true. Clinton's words on taxes, trade, minimum wages, immigration and Wall Street do sound a lot like those of the socialist Sanders. But look past the stump speeches and something more significant becomes clear: Clinton's rhetoric may have changed, but her policy positions haven't....
But an analysis of her speeches, debates and white papers shows that she's been a careful tactician. On issue after issue, she has left an escape hatch and declined to say things that might cause voter whiplash later. Once she clinches the nomination, Clinton may not need to tack back to the center much at all

Is the tail wagging the dog now?

The Federal Reserve looks to have outsourced monetary policy to the financial markets -- and that may not necessarily be bad...
“The risk is that markets’ perception of such continued accommodation will embolden them even more to try to force the policy hand of the Fed,” Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz SE and a Bloomberg View columnist, said in an e-mail.

Kansas tried supply-side economics. How'd that work?

For the past few years, Kansas's Republican Governor Sam Brownback and his allies in the state's legislature have been conducting a fiscal experiment involving big cuts in income taxes for individuals and businesses. The theory was that this "march to zero income taxes," as Brownback has called it, would spur entrepreneurship, economic growth and lots of job creation -- 25,000 new jobs in each of the next four years, Brownback pledged during his successful re-election campaign in 2014...
In the sense that the tax cuts haven't paid for themselves, that's true.
But the budget crises have helped Brownback push through the policies he favors -- he and the legislature have so far made up for the lost revenue with increased sales taxes and cutbacks in spending on education and other government functions. One goal, as prominent backer (and index-fund pioneer!) Rex Sinquefield explained last year, is to shift taxes from income to consumption. Another is just to shrink the state government.
Has this approach succeeded in stimulating Kansas's economy and creating jobs? To know that for sure you'd have to know what would have happened in the absence of Brownback's experiment, which is of course not possible. But there is a simple substitute -- just look at what's been happening in Nebraska.

Kansas has lagged Nebraska in job creation since 2011, and the gap has widened since late 2014. Instead of adding the 25,000 jobs a year that Brownback promised, Kansas actually lost 5,400 jobs over the 12 months ending in February.

“We are the death merchant of the world”

As the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Wilkerson played an important role in the George W. Bush administration. In the years since, however, the former Bush official has established himself as a prominent critic of U.S. foreign policy.
“I think Smedley Butler was onto something,” explained Lawrence Wilkerson, in an extended interview with Salon...
Wilkerson spoke highly of Butler, referencing the late general’s famous quote: “Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
“I think the problem that Smedley identified, quite eloquently actually,” Wilkerson said, “especially for a Marine — I had to say that as a soldier,” the retired Army colonel added with a laugh; “I think the problem is much deeper and more profound today, and much more subtle and sophisticated.”
Today, the military-industrial complex “is much more pernicious than Eisenhower ever thought it would be,” Wilkerson warned...
“It’s not like Dick Cheney or someone like that went and said let’s have a war because we want to make money for Halliburton, but it is a pernicious on decision-making,” the former Bush official explained. “And the fact that they donate so much money to congressional elections and to PACs and so forth is another pernicious influence.”
“Those who deny this are just being utterly naive, or they are complicit too,” Wilkerson added.

Microsoft stays committed to AI

Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said his company is committed to playing a key role in the emerging market for artificial intelligence-based chat software, one week after the company’s first Internet chat bot in the U.S. was so manipulated by users that it had to be pulled down within a day of its introduction.
...
On March 23, Microsoft released Tay, an online AI chat bot designed to mimic the personality of a teenager, to attract millennial users. Yet the company had to yank the program after Twitter users taught it to spew racist, sexist, pornographic and offensive remarks in what the company called a “coordinated attack” that took advantage of a “critical oversight.”