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 [...]
Archive for the ‘Obama’ Category
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 »
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 [...]
Foxes Guarding the Henhouse
Posted in Food, Football, George W. Bush, Health Care, Meltdown, Obama, Tim Geithner on October 5, 2009 | 8 Comments »
The basic story is tragic if common: person eats food, person gets sick from food. In this case, the person was a young Minnesota dance instructor named Stephanie Smith, and the food was ground beef processed by Cargill in Wisconsin from sources in Nebraska, Texas, South Dakota, and Uraguay and contaminated with the E.coli bacteria, [...]
The World Upside Down
Posted in Corruption, Meltdown, Obama, Tim Geithner on September 24, 2009 | 4 Comments »
The Kansas Supreme Court has given, if not the green light, at least a very long yellow to people who want to try to drag out foreclosure processes with versions of the “show the note” strategy: [I]n the event that a mortgage loan somehow separates interests of the note and the deed of trust, with [...]
The Fine Print
Posted in Health Care, Obama on September 18, 2009 | 12 Comments »
Ward on Words links to a GQ article from a former Dubya speechwriter describing the TARP launch: [Dubya] especially wanted Americans to know that his plan would likely see a return on the taxpayers’ investment. Under his proposal, he said, the federal government would buy troubled mortgages on the cheap and then resell them at [...]
Hazards
Posted in Meltdown, Obama, Tim Geithner on September 16, 2009 | 7 Comments »
Johnson and Kwak hit the big time: a Washington Post column on the anniversary of the Lehman failure. Like most people, they take the position that letting Lehman fail was a mistake. It is a curious read side by side with Cochrane and Zingales’ Wall Street Journal piece, which includes this blast from the already-cloudy [...]
Perspective
Posted in Dick Cheney, Foreigners, George W. Bush, Military, Obama, War on Terror on September 14, 2009 | 10 Comments »
Undeterred by his own attorney general and common sense, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon intends to prosecute Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, Douglas Feith, William Haynes, Jay Bybee, and David Addington (collectively, the “Bush Six”) for their role in providing the legal framework for Guantanamo: On Saturday, however, Público reported that Judge Garzón had accepted a lawsuit [...]
Reform Week: Foreign Policy
Posted in Dick Cheney, Foreigners, George W. Bush, Middle East, Military, Obama, South Asia, War on Terror, Weapons of Mass Destruction on September 11, 2009 | 7 Comments »
Eight years.
Reform Week: Health Care
Posted in Health Care, Industrial Policy, Joe Lieberman, Labor Policy, Obama on September 9, 2009 | 12 Comments »
The health care debate is fascinating. While the bailout and subsequent financial adventures entailed a language most Representatives could not even comprehend, most everyone with a pulse believes he understands the health care industry, and being wrong is no impediment. Reminds me of the old and undoubtedly apocryphal tale: Reporter goes to Appalachia in 1964 [...]
