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 ‘Obama’ 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 »
The Wrong Way, Slowly
Posted in Middle East, Military, Obama, South Asia, War on Terror on December 7, 2009 | 7 Comments »
For the first seventeen years of the Peloponnesian War, Athens and Sparta fought to something of a draw. Sparta dominated the land, but could not breach Athens’ walls. Athens dominated the sea, but could not march inland with enough force to defeat Sparta.
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 [...]
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 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 [...]
Control of the Stakes
Posted in Obama, Rudy Giuliani, War on Terror on November 16, 2009 | 7 Comments »
I am a huge fan of going for it on fourth down. The odds are typically on your side, and the main reason coaches don’t do it is that failure is so much more evident than success. Well, here goes the second-guessing: All sorts of things went wrong to get the Pats to this position [...]
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 [...]
Good Allies, Just Too Few
Posted in Finance, George W. Bush, Meltdown, Obama, Tim Geithner on October 23, 2009 | 8 Comments »
Not many people like the idea of breaking up financial institutions, but if I have to be part of a tiny minority, I’ll take this one: “People say I’m old-fashioned and banks can no longer be separated from nonbank activity,” Mr. Volcker said, acknowledging criticism that he is nostalgic for an earlier era. “That argument,” [...]
