It might seem strange to use economics to study the Holocaust, but that is precisely what Joshua Blustein has tried to do, and his research helps us understand better the dimensions of this tragedy. At the link below, you can find an interactive timeline of inflation in the Lodz Ghetto, whose residents were shipped off to their deaths 80 years ago yesterday:

If you, God forbid, had lived in the Lodz Ghetto, you would be given a two-week ration and sometimes a workplace soup—which together ranged from ~1,000 to 1,400 calories per day. Worse, you would receive it all at once, and were expected to store and ration it to last two weeks. But because it was so meager, you would likely gulp it all down immediately—and then have nothing left for the remaining time. If you didn’t die in that time, you’d end up flocking to the black market as your only resort—but that would pit you against both the German and Jewish authorities, who outlawed and harshly punished this sort of private commerce.

As this one anecdote shows, it is impossible for nearly all contemporary readers to . . . conceptualize this torturous experience. The story of monetary policy in the Lodz Ghetto is one of terrorizing constriction—the constant opening and closing of a vise that, each time, shut tighter than before.

Yesterday I saw an unconfirmed report that the Biden administration has offered Israel a massive arms deal in exchange for a promise not to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Even if the report is incorrect, there is plenty of other evidence that the White House has been trying to dissuade Jerusalem from mounting such an attack. The thinking behind this pressure is hard to fathom, as there is little Israel could do that would better serve American interests in the Middle East than putting some distance between the ayatollahs and nuclear weapons. Aaron MacLean explains why this is so, in the context of a broader discussion of strategic priorities in the Middle East and elsewhere:

If the Iran issue were satisfactorily adjusted in the direction of the American interest, the question of Israel’s security would become more manageable overnight. If a network of American partners enjoyed security against state predation, the proactive suppression of militarily less serious threats like Islamic State would be more easily organized—and indeed, such partners would be less vulnerable to the manipulation of powers external to the region.

[The Biden administration’s] commitment to escalation avoidance has had the odd effect of making the security situation in the region look a great deal as it would if America had actually withdrawn [from the Middle East].

Alternatively, we could project competence by effectively backing our Middle East partners in their competitions against their enemies, who are also our enemies, by ensuring a favorable overall balance of power in the region by means of our partnership network, and by preventing Iran from achieving nuclear status—even if it courts escalation with Iran in the shorter run.