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 ‘Labor Policy’ 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 »
Change for the Sake of Change
Posted in Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Middle East, Obama, South Asia, War on Terror, Weapons of Mass Destruction on December 2, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Still trying to process all of my objections to the current Afghan strategy into something moderately coherent, so I’ll start with a very different story: Fritz Henderson was rather suddenly and unceremoniously dismissed as CEO of GM. General Motors Co. Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson resigned after eight months on the job as directors concluded [...]
Picking Fights
Posted in Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Miscellaneous on November 24, 2009 | 2 Comments »
I’m a little surprised to see this: Wal-Mart, the mightiest retail giant in history, may have met its own worthy adversary: Amazon.com. In what is emerging as one of the main story lines of the 2009 post-recession shopping season, the two heavyweight retailers are waging an online price war that is spreading through product areas [...]
Letting the Door Hit You
Posted in Foreigners, Health Care, Immigration, Labor Policy on November 23, 2009 | 1 Comment »
For years we have been subjected to odd debates about whether the government should permit, encourage, or attempt to prevent the reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada. Seniors love it; they want to be able to drive across the border and save money. The drug companies hate it; they want to charge American prices. That [...]
MR. GO
Posted in Obama, John McCain, Labor Policy, Corruption, Industrial Policy, 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 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 [...]
Spare the Rod
Posted in Domestic Policy, George W. Bush, Housing Crisis, Housing Policy, Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Obama on October 20, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Two Russians, Ivan and Peter, struggle to survive in farm country. Eventually Ivan gets a goat. His life improves; he has milk and help with the grasses. A genie comes to Peter and says “I can grant you your deepest wish.” Peter is shocked. “You’re going to kill Ivan’s goat?” That was always the gallows [...]
