Finally got a chance to read the Vanity Fair article on Sarah Palin: The first thing McCain could have learned about Palin is what it means that she is from Alaska. More than 30 years ago, John McPhee wrote, “Alaska is a foreign country significantly populated with Americans. Its languages extend to English. Its nature [...]
Archive for June, 2009
Vanity
Posted in Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Obama, Sarah Palin on June 30, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Thin Veneer
Posted in Industrial Policy, Obama, Tim Geithner on June 29, 2009 | 1 Comment »
The pretense that the General Motors assets are being bought out of bankruptcy by a completely different, unrelated company funded by the Federal government has always been a bit difficult to sustain. New GM, for example, is making no effort to renegotiate Old GM’s labor contracts, or even to refuse to recognize seniority or other [...]
Unlikely Allies
Posted in Domestic Policy, Meltdown, Obama on June 26, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Simon Johnson takes on the hedge fund industry’s lobbying efforts in today’s Baseline: if hedge funds dig in too deeply with “the crisis was not our fault” position, that is just asking for trouble – and to be scapegoated – down the road. It would be much smarter to get out ahead of the political [...]
Iran
Posted in Uncategorized on June 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
So far I have avoided talking about Iran because, well, because Iran is weird. It is a country of seventy million people – about the same population as California, Texas, and Illinois combined – where a quarter of the population is under fifteen and nearly two thirds are under thirty (compared with the US, where [...]
Governor Crazy
Posted in Miscellaneous on June 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’m kind of enjoying this whole Mark Sanford AWOL thing; it’s a refreshing throwback to the days when a governor could do something completely nuts and not have threats of prosecution for prostitution across state lines. I have no idea what the guy has been doing, but my guess is that it has very little [...]
Volatility
Posted in Basketball, Germany, Hockey, Meltdown, Military on June 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Catching up on missed reading and came across this exchange between Bill Simmons and Malcom Gladwell. Gladwell is a famous writer, but his talents are most obvious when commenting on sports – there are several other excellent social commentators, but a comp set that includes Dan Shaugnessy offers far more room to excel. Here is [...]
Mo’ Cali
Posted in Domestic Policy, Miscellaneous on June 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The Idea Locker doesn’t like my proposal to break California into three states: California doesn’t need to be broken up. If you were to give each of the de novo states that same comically bad constitution that California has now, each mini-state would have the same problems. It’s not that California has such an unwieldy [...]
Thanks
Posted in Miscellaneous on June 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Discovered a rather unusual rush of traffic last night – generally I am pretty sure I know personally everyone who could possibly read the blog – and realized it stemmed from James Kwak‘s kind words on Twitter. Thank you. Funny thing is the sense of urgency Twitter seems to create in its readers. Almost all [...]
Financial Regulation
Posted in George W. Bush, Meltdown, Obama, Tim Geithner on June 18, 2009 | 2 Comments »
I was planning on ignoring the regulatory non-news that was the Obama financial regulation press conference, but it seems to have gotten so much coverage from thoughtful people (Krugman, Baseline, Rortybomb, Robert Reich) that I can’t resist. They’re wrong, and so is the President. Or perhaps not wrong; missing the point. The regulatory changes come [...]
California Dreaming
Posted in Domestic Policy, Miscellaneous on June 17, 2009 | 7 Comments »
The financial crisis has affected all state budgets, but no state quite as enormously as California. The state has endured the perfect storm: the legacy of the 1978 tax revolt, a liberal, growing population that governs through direct ballot initiative, high sales and income taxes that threaten to tip businesses and commerce out of state, [...]
