Eurocope - by Noah Smith - Noahpinion

I recently attended the excellent Kilkenomics festival in Kilkenny, Ireland. If you ever get the chance to go, I recommend it. Putting comedians and economists on the same stage doesn’t sound like it makes sense, but it’s surprisingly effective; they balance each other out quite well. And Ireland is a wonderful country, of course. But I did notice one thing at the festival that made me a little sad. Since I’m American, the festival organizers stuck me on two panels about the United States — one about the economy, the other about Trump and politics. All throughout those panels, the comedians made jokes at America’s expense — how Americans don’t have health care, how everyone is poor, how guns and violence are everywhere, and so on. The crowd ate it up. But whereas in the past this would have felt like friendly teasing, now it felt strained and a little desperate. Europeans have good reason to be mad at the United States right now. Donald Trump has scaled back U.S. aid to Ukraine, cut mi

I recently attended the excellent Kilkenomics festival in Kilkenny, Ireland. If you ever get the chance to go, I recommend it. Putting comedians and economists on the same stage doesn’t sound like it makes sense, but it’s surprisingly effective; they balance each other out quite well. And Ireland is a wonderful country, of course. But I did notice one thing at the festival that made me a little sad. Since I’m American, the festival organizers stuck me on two panels about the United States — one about the economy, the other about Trump and politics. All throughout those panels, the comedians ma