Luis Gutierrez is leading a rally in DC to argue for comprehensive immigration reform. We simply cannot wait any longer for a bill that keeps our families together, protects our workers and allows a pathway to legalization for those who have earned it…We need a bill that says if you come here to hurt our [...]
Archive for October, 2009
American Superalloy
Posted in Health Care, Immigration, Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Mexico, Politics on October 13, 2009 | 8 Comments »
Chicago on the Plate
Posted in Argentina, Australia, Education, Foreigners, Italy, South America on October 9, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Edward Glaeser (courtesy Stephen Dodson and Ben Casnocha) asks what went wrong with Argentina: A century ago, there were only seven countries in the world that were more prosperous than Argentina (Belgium, Switzerland, Britain and four former English colonies including the United States)… In 1909, per capita income in Argentina was 50 percent higher than [...]
The Way We Do Things
Posted in Ben Bernanke, China, Finance, Foreign Policy, Foreigners, France, Germany on October 8, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Economista Non Grata asks about the rumors that the dollar will be replaced as a reserve currency. Allow me to try to get to it via something completely different – the Krug’s excellent diagram of what is going on in Bernanke’s mind: There are times I kick myself for not coming up with stuff like [...]
Role of Government
Posted in Corruption, Energy Policy, Health Care, Middle East on October 7, 2009 | 11 Comments »
David Brooks’ silly season seems to have found an Indian Summer, as he goes on about his imaginary friends Mr. Bentham and Mr. Hume: If you put Mr. Bentham in charge of the government, he’d proceed with confidence. If you told him to solve a complicated issue like the global-warming problem, he’d gather the smartest [...]
World Cup
Posted in Architecture, Foreigners, Olympics, Soccer on October 6, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Amazingly, some smart people are treating the celebration of Chicago’s defeat for the Olympics in 2016 as a sign of childishness, as opposed to the maturity to know a Trojan Horse when you see one. Just because all the other kids are licking light sockets doesn’t mean you should do it too. Since I have [...]
Foxes Guarding the Henhouse
Posted in Food, Football, George W. Bush, Health Care, Meltdown, Obama, Tim Geithner on October 5, 2009 | 8 Comments »
The basic story is tragic if common: person eats food, person gets sick from food. In this case, the person was a young Minnesota dance instructor named Stephanie Smith, and the food was ground beef processed by Cargill in Wisconsin from sources in Nebraska, Texas, South Dakota, and Uraguay and contaminated with the E.coli bacteria, [...]
Swiss Health
Posted in Corruption, Foreigners, Health Care on October 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Bit of a Swiss theme this week; first the Polanski drama, then the planted articles in the Times discussing Swiss health care. See, it isn’t so bad to do without the public option – the Swiss do just fine. That is quite correct: the Swiss have a better health care system than we have, and [...]
Tell Us What You Really Want
Posted in Corruption, Housing Crisis, Housing Policy, Meltdown on October 1, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Courtesy of Mike Konczal at Rortybomb (itself a thoughtful compilation of a variety of articles, especially this one from Interfluidity), this gem from the Mortgage Bankers Association: The centerpiece of MBA’s recommendation is the creation of a new line of mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Each security would have two components – a loan level guarantee provided by [...]
