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 — resulting in levee breaches that flooded large swaths of greater New Orleans. (more…)
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 suburbs.
Why does this matter so much? Because the New York suburbs epitomize the new Blue America. Twenty-some-odd years ago, the economically diverse, but generally affluent, suburbs in Westchester and Long Island represented the success of the Reagan Revolution…But the New York suburbs led the way back to Democratic dominance, arguably presaging the Obama coalition.
I have written often about the strange alliance of very high and very low incomes that defines the modern Democratic party – the working class and the intellectual property class. It’s my version of “flat earth,” I suppose. So I’m a bit jealous that someone else spotted this. (more…)
Posted in Architecture, Transportation Policy on October 26, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Traffic. The ultimate local issue. Mayoral campaigns are supposed to hinge on it. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars building roads to deal with it. The stimulus bill is predicated on the idea that there is a near-infinite need for construction at ever-increasing prices, despite environmental and neighborhood concerns that make it more difficult than ever to get things done.
Are we sure we are using our existing roads wisely? (more…)
Posted in Education, Finance, Football, Foreigners, Housing Policy, Labor Policy, Transportation Policy on October 15, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Mike Konczal has an interesting post that is popping up all over the place (here, here, and here, and probably somewhere else by now) analyzing a throwaway human interest piece on a woman named Karen King from the Wall Street Journal:
Her biggest chunk of debt, $26,000, stems from student loans to pay for her two-year associate’s degree from a community college — loans now in the hands of collectors. The remaining $10,000 or so includes old credit-card balances, debt to a store that rents furniture, utility bills and back taxes. Another obligation is $400 a month she contributes to the rent on her grandfather’s two-bedroom apartment, where her mother, uncle and sister also live. (more…)
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 theory has been promoted by a motivated group of scientists and laymen who base their conclusions on poor analyses of data and misinterpretations of technical material…
Oil remains abundant, and the price will likely come down closer to the historical level of $30 a barrel as new supplies come forward in the deep waters off West Africa and Latin America, in East Africa, and perhaps in the Bakken oil shale fields of Montana and North Dakota.
I have my doubts, but I like the contrarian position and the conviction. I might start from an even more contrarian position: in general, I would expect commodities to decline in real value.
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 to live. Most people in Europe don’t live in these areas, and can’t afford to…Where European tourists go wrong:
1. They usually visit the most European places in the U.S. – especially New York City and San Francisco. Since NYC and SF are basically uglier, scarier versions of the premiere European cities, it’s natural for tourists to go home with a negative impression.
It’s a nice way to look at the world, and a good reminder to assess assumptions. I’m just not sure it’s terribly accurate.
Posted in Corruption, Foreigners, Middle East, Transportation Policy on August 23, 2009 | 4 Comments »
When it came time for Switzerland to decide between an angry US Internal Revenue Service and its own constitution, the good people in Bern made the only decision they could: they forgot the details of the bank secrecy provision of their constitution and decided to turn over four thousand names of American UBS clients.
Tax cheats are hardly a sympathetic bunch. The rule the Americans are accused of breaking – earning income offshore and not declaring it to the IRS – is a bit silly; the US is the only OECD country that even presumes the right to tax worldwide income, and it is a bit of a tortured argument that money flows outside the US should be any concern of the US government in the first place. But those are the rules, and there are plenty of silly tax rules that citizens are nevertheless expected to follow. Good for the IRS to step up.
Why is it limited to some petty-ante tax case?
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 doubt our willingness to deploy either. (more…)
Posted in Architecture, Transportation Policy on August 14, 2009 | 10 Comments »
I am not a big fan of mass transit. It doesn’t bother me as much as, say, bicycles, but I don’t see European streetcars and think progress. I tend to think they should get that stuff underground and out of the way. Just as soccer’s foreign roots give it a certain hipster credibility despite the reality that is a boring game born of the necessity in much of the world to have incredibly simple rules, negligible equipment, and an ability to scale for various numbers of participants, so I suspect that much of the left’s support for rail in various forms stems from an assumption that other nations must have some moral superiority.
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 not hit in the head. I know it is asking a lot, but Congress should be able to do better.
