This is it for me, at least for this chapter. I am off to join some people who don’t much appreciate voices singing out of key, and while they might be able to get over my public disdain for coaches who punt in opposing territory, it would be rather awkward to continue to point out [...]
Archive for the ‘Corruption’ Category
The End of the Internet
Posted in Corruption, Education, Energy Policy, Health Care, Housing Crisis, Housing Policy, Industrial Policy, Inspirational, Labor Policy, Meltdown, Middle East, Miscellaneous, NAFTA, Obama, War on Terror on December 15, 2009 | 29 Comments »
Vegas, With Real Gambling
Posted in Architecture, Corruption, Foreigners, Housing Crisis, Meltdown, Middle East, Obama, Tim Geithner on November 30, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I am enjoying the goings-on in Dubai tremendously. It’s like the field mouse of an economics drug trial: take every extreme symptom, jam it into one place of absolutely no global consequence, and then try to figure out the cure. Suppose you had a tiny country that decided it wanted to be important. Playing on [...]
MR. GO
Posted in Corruption, Industrial Policy, John McCain, Labor Policy, Obama, Transportation Policy on November 19, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Now here’s an interesting verdict that doesn’t seem to get much press: In a ruling that could leave the government open to billions of dollars in claims from Hurricane Katrina victims, a federal judge said late Wednesday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had displayed “gross negligence” in failing to maintain a navigation channel [...]
Couple of Blog Links
Posted in China, Corruption, Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Meltdown, Obama on November 17, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Short post to follow up on two things that were on Baseline recently. First of all, take James’ advice and check out this Interfluidity post: An enduring truth about financial regulation is this: Given the discretion to do so, financial regulators will always do the wrong thing. Steve touches on several of the themes I [...]
Policing the Police
Posted in Basketball, Corruption, Housing Policy, Labor Policy, Meltdown, Obama, Soccer on November 9, 2009 | 3 Comments »
James Kwak over at Baseline has an post about the accounting treatment of Bank of America and Fannie Mae; quoting John Hempton: If Bank of America were to provide at the same rate its quarterly losses would be 50-80 billion and it would be completely bereft of capital – it would be totally cactus. It [...]
Way Under the Radar
Posted in Corruption, George W. Bush, Health Care, Labor Policy, Meltdown, Obama, Transportation Policy on November 5, 2009 | 3 Comments »
I find it awfully difficult to care about county elections. Luckily, Ben Adler seems willing to look at them, and he picked up something interesting: Unlike the New York City mayoral, or the Virginia governor’s race, there is a really bad sign for Democrats out of the East Coast:… Republicans made inroads in New York’s [...]
The Fierce Urgency of Something
Posted in Abortion, Ben Bernanke, Corruption, Dick Cheney, Education, Energy Policy, George W. Bush, Health Care, Immigration, Marriage Equality, Meltdown on November 4, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Even by off-cycle election standards, this was an odd one. Perhaps it’s just payback for such a good election last year. I’ll trade watching Chris Christie do his Sopranos impression for never having had to listen to this: It’s been just 68 days since that afternoon in Dayton, Ohio, when Senator McCain introduced me as [...]
The Model State
Posted in Corruption, Education, Housing Policy, Labor Policy on November 2, 2009 | 6 Comments »
William Voegeli has an LA Times article on the two different models of large state – Texas and California: California and Texas are not perfect representatives of the alternative deals, but they come close. Overall, the Census Bureau’s latest data show that state and local government expenditures for all purposes in 2005-06 were 46.8% higher [...]
Home Court Advantage
Posted in China, Corruption, Dick Cheney, Energy Policy, Foreigners, France, Labor Policy, Meltdown, Middle East, Military, Obama, Russia on October 16, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Once upon a time, there was a hedge fund named Hermitage Capital. Its head was Bill Browder, and it had the clever idea, back during the Yeltsin Administration, of investing Western capital in Russia. It worked spectacularly well, until it didn’t: Browder is a smart guy. He made a lot of money and managed to [...]
Market v Business
Posted in Ben Bernanke, Corruption, George W. Bush, Labor Policy, Meltdown, Obama, Tim Geithner on October 14, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Luigi Zingales has an excellent article for National Affairs that tries to place what has been so special about the American economic system…and why it is particularly vulnerable today: Capitalism has long enjoyed exceptionally strong public support in the United States because America’s form of capitalism has long been distinct from those found elsewhere in [...]
