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What If 9/11 Had Not Happened?

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  Sep 11, 2026  Remembering 9/11, and What Unites Us  Opinion letters on the 25 Anniversary. The title of documentary above   " 9/11 - The day that changed the world | DW Documentary" begs the counterfactual questions "What If 9/11 Had Not Happened" both for the United States and for the World System . I heard live coverage of 9/11 on the radio driving to work that day, as did many other Americans. Most Americans learned about the terrorist attack on the United States through their TV sets. But a large portion of the population who lived and worked outside of the Eastern time zone first heard news of planes flying into the towers of the World Trade Center through their radios while they were driving to work. I was one of those people. When I pulled into the YMCA parking lot in downtown Spokane, Washington, just before 5:30 a.m. PT, I was listening to columnist Molly Ivins read a clever essay on  Morning Edition . When I turned my car back on shortly after 7 a.m...
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Temperature Shocks: Growth and Unemployment in the EU

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There are lots of shocks hitting the European Union ( EU ), for example Energy Shocks  and  Floods, Drought and Heat Waves . In this post, I'm going to look at the effect of Surface Temperature shocks on the EUL20 Model . The   EUL20 Model  has three component state variables:  EU1  = (Growth),  EU2  = (CO2-LU) and  EU3  = (LU-GDP-N), that is, Overall Growth, a controller for CO2 Emissions-Unemployment (LU) and a controller for Unemployment-Output-Population. From the shock decomposition diagram above, a global temperature shock has negative effects on all three state variables (see the EUL20 TEMP Model below). In each case, the system responds positively after a few years but does not return to full equilibrium until around ten years. In other words, repeated yearly temperature shocks will cumulate and continue damaging the economy over time. Source: European Environmental Agency Additionally, over time, surface temperatures in ...
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Earthquake Shocks: Venezuela

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June 25, 2026  Why the Venezuelan Earthquakes Happened  What to Expect Next;  Twin earthquakes like those that ripped through the region are unusual but not unheard of. Scientists are already gathering data needed for a more detailed picture . Notes Wikipedia Crisis in Venezuela   An ongoing socioeconomic and political crisis began in  Venezuela  during the presidency of  Hugo Chávez  and worsened under his successor  Nicolás Maduro . It has been marked by  hyperinflation , starvation, [ 57 ]  disease, crime, and mortality rates, resulting in  massive emigration . [ 58 ]  Food shortages and hyperinflation have ended, but inflation remains high. It is the worst economic crisis in Venezuela's history and considered more severe than the  Great Depression in the United States Economy of Venezuela   a  developing   socialist  economy strongly dependent on its natural resources. Its economic growth is cl...
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Globalization Shocks: The United Kingdom After Brexit

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23 June 2026  Britain Is Still Deep in the Shadow of Brexit :  Ten years after a slim majority voted to leave the European Union, the economic and political effects of that decision continue to disrupt the United Kingdom. 22 June 2026  Ten Years After Brexit, the Dismal Verdict Is In and Prime Minister Starmer Resigns Part of the rationale for Brexit  was essentially the  Shock Doctrine : shock the economic system out of it's "socialized stupor" and assume that the new freedom will unleash unlimited exponential growth. Ten Years after  Brexit , the verdict hasn't been positive (except for  Nigel Paul Farage , a British politician who has been  Leader of Reform UK  since 2024). One of the original arguments seemed to be that , without the "heavy-handed regulation" of the European Union ( EU ), the UK could be benefiting more from Globalization . In this post, I will use the UKL20 Model with input from the KOF Index of Globalization  t...
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Boiler Plate

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                               State Space Model Estimation The Measurement Matrix for the  state space models  was constructed using  Principal Components Analysis  with  standardized  data from the  World Development Indicators . The statistical analysis was conducted in an extension of the  dse package . The package is currently supported by an online portal ( here ) and can be downloaded, with the R-programming language, for any personal computer  here .  Code for the state space  Dynamic Component models (DCMs)  is available on my Google drive ( here ) and referenced in each post. Atlanta Fed Economy Now My approach to forecasting is similar to the  EconomyNow model used by the Atlanta Federal Reserve . Since the new Republican Administration is signaling that they would like to eliminate the Federal Reserve, the app might well not be...
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About

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In the analysis of macro-social systems, it is easy (after the fact) to identify system shocks  (World Wars, changes of political regime, Pandemics, etc.) but it is generally not possible to predict the shocks. In many cases, we do not have enough high equality data to measure the full impacts of historical shocks. What we can do, however, is estimate a dynamic systems model based on whatever data is available and then simulate the model to (1) see how well it tracks to data and (2) explore how the model responds  to shocks imposed on the simulation. Shock Doctrine   a 2007 book by Canadian author and social activist  Naomi Klein . In the book, Klein argues that  neoliberal  economic policies promoted by  Milton Friedman  and the  Chicago school of economics  have risen to global prominence because of a deliberate strategy she calls "disaster capitalism". I mpulse response , or  impulse response function  ( IRF ) In  ...
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