Steven Brill has a fantastic article in the New Yorker about the New York City Public Schools. As will not surprise anyone who has ever been in a big city public school, the workforce has all the responsiveness of a late-70s auto assembly plant: The document that dictates how Daysi Garcia can—and cannot—govern P.S. 65 [...]
Archive for the ‘Industrial Policy’ Category
Broken Schools
Posted in Education, Industrial Policy, Labor Policy on August 31, 2009 | 12 Comments »
Searching for the Peak
Posted in Finance, Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Middle East, Transportation Policy on August 27, 2009 | 3 Comments »
The Times Op-Ed page is not typically given to investment topics – so much easier to let Maureen Dowd mail in fluff pieces about her friends – so I was a bit surprised to see Michael Lynch’s piece on peak oil. He doesn’t pull the typical eight-hundred-words-of-hedging bit either: Like many Malthusian beliefs, peak oil [...]
Strangers in Familiar Lands
Posted in Foreigners, Health Care, Housing Policy, Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Transportation Policy on August 25, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Bryan Caplan has a thought-provoking post that the reason Americans and Europeans misunderstand each other stems from the difference between experiencing another country as a tourist and as a resident. Where American tourists go wrong: 1. In European countries, historic downtowns of the premiere cities like Paris or Stockholm are by far the best places [...]
Even More About Food
Posted in Food, Health Care, Industrial Policy, Labor Policy on August 24, 2009 | 5 Comments »
I just saw the response of Blake Hurst, a Missouri corn farmer, to Michael Pollan’s long article. Blake’s perspective: I deal in the real world, not superstitions, and unless the consumer absolutely forces my hand, I am about as likely to adopt organic methods as the Wall Street Journal is to publish their next edition [...]
Balanced Budget 101
Posted in Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Military, Obama, Peter Orzag on August 20, 2009 | 11 Comments »
Warren Buffett, occupying the role of avuncular billionaire once held by Ross Perot before he turned out to be absolutely insane, has an article in the New York Times advocating a balanced budget. At least, that’s what I think he is advocating; he runs from specifics with the dogged determination of Habermas: Slowing them down [...]
Black Gold
Posted in Industrial Policy, Mexico, Middle East, Military, Transportation Policy on August 18, 2009 | 15 Comments »
Brazil has announced that it wants the national oil company, Petrobras, to control all future deep-sea oil resource development. Ever since Lazaro Cardenas nationalized Mexico’s oil reserves it has been the dream of oil-producing nations to control the wealth beneath their lands. Two can play that game. But it takes courage and communication, and I [...]
American Bantustan
Posted in Food, Housing Policy, Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Obama on August 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Over at Daily Kos, Johnny Gunn has a story of a bicycle trip he took in 2005 through Navajo Nation and the reservations of northern New Mexico. The story builds to the allegation that “There are reasons why there are no Whole Foods stores in any of these places – reasons that go beyond population [...]
Clunker
Posted in Industrial Policy, Obama, Transportation Policy on August 4, 2009 | 4 Comments »
The cash for clunkers plan (the Car Allowance Rebate System) ran out of money in its first few days of operation. For some reason, people in Congress see this as a good thing. If Congress passed a program that involved dropping $4,500 bundles from high altitude, it would probably be popular, at least among people [...]
Tranquility Base
Posted in Corruption, Foreigners, Industrial Policy, Inspirational, Military, Miscellaneous on July 21, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Forty years yesterday man walked on the moon. It was a beautiful accomplishment, perhaps the fitting coda to the giant waves of nationalism that engulfed the planet from 1914-1945. It was also, like any piece of pure art, completely pointless.
CIT?
Posted in Corruption, Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Meltdown, Obama on July 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Noooo! Just when it seemed the Fed/Treasury was on the verge of showing some backbone and finally screwed up the courage to allow a firm with an SIC code beginning with 6 to experience the consequences of its actions, just as Goldman bathes in the milk and honey of consolidation, here comes the the attempt [...]
