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Category Archives: politics
Interregnum
I’ve seen several references to this time between the election and the inauguration as an interregnum, and many writers expressing concern that President Bush is still, well, the President until January 20th. The thing is, we don’t have an interregnum … Continue reading
Coerced for My Own Good
H. W. Brands, in his biography of F.D.R., Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, writes, Many of the progressives, judging themselves lovers of peace, had assumed that they would be the wrong … Continue reading
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Two Sets of Rules
I think my major problem with Mosler’s theories is that there are two sets of rules. The second set only applies to the the issuer of the fiat currency. It is not applicable to, for example, New York State, or … Continue reading
Lies We Learned in High School
For such a smart fellow, you’d think that Matthew Yglesias would not regurgitate the standard economic history of the Great Depression drummed into all of us by five or six paragraphs in our high school history textbooks. The portrayal of … Continue reading
Caring
My daughters got into an interesting discussion on the way back from their religious education classes. The Little Sister was upset that one of her friends does not care about the President. The Big Sister suggested that maybe the friend … Continue reading
Posted in family, politics
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Someone Needs More Crayons
The graphic artists at The New York Times, CNN, and pretty much every other outlet providing maps of the election results need to be provided with more than a pair of red and blue crayons. Maybe they should use pastels … Continue reading
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Haste Makes Waste
Sandy Levinson, who finds it a horror that our defective Constitution allows the out-going President to stay in office past the election, would not take comfort in this report from the Mercatus Center on Midnight Regulations. The paper shows that, … Continue reading
The Disarming Power of Words
We TiVo’d the last debate, and watched it again just now. Others have summarized it much more pithily, or eviscerated the candidates with more gusto, but I’d like to offer a small observation, a small suggestion in hind-sight that perhaps … Continue reading
Posted in politics, rhetoric
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Bedfellows
Politics makes for strange bedfellows, they say, and the Republican primary in New York’s 99th assembly district is a case in point. The incumbent, Greg Ball, pissed off nearly everybody in Albany, infuriated the Putnam County executive (a Republican), and … Continue reading
Double Jeopardy and Guilt by Association
Were criminal charges brought against William Ayers? Was he found guilty? Did he serve his time? If not, why not? Meanwhile, apparently living in the same neighborhood and attending the same coffee klatch is enough to tar one as a … Continue reading
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On Affordable Housing
Housing is affordable if the price is low enough for one to afford it. How does inflating the prices through increasing leverage make them more affordable?
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Backed by the Full Faith and Credit of the United States
The key word there is faith.
But We Have to do Something!
There is a propensity for politicians, and in truth all of us, to act hastily when the times call rather for patience and calm. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), in discussing the Senate’s approval of a bill permitting the Treasury to … Continue reading
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Perceptions
The newspaper says there’s a problem, but is there really? via Tom Palmer, David Cay Johnston wonders the same thing. In a letter to his fellow journalists, he writes, In covering the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street don’t … Continue reading
Posted in economics, politics
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Angling for Satisfaction
The excerpts from, and an interview with the author of, Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency are disturbing, and reinforce what we already suspected. In what I hope is not a quixotic exercise, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has brought suit, Jewel … Continue reading
Depression
(some observations, which I’ll hopefully clean up and form into a coherent post) Some say the financial crisis is a market failure, fixable by regulation; others, that it’s a regulatory failure, fixable by the market. In any case, someone took … Continue reading
When Pigs Fly
I tend to agree with Greg Mankiw — more generally with Arthur Pigou — on his recommendation to increase certain taxes in order to cover the external costs that those products feed. However, there’s a flawed assumption in the analysis. … Continue reading
Posted in economics, politics
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Greetings, Sports Fans!
Watching the Presidential caucus race is, for me at least, akin to watching baseball. It helps to look at it as a team sport, with a rivalry as deep-seated as that between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red … Continue reading
The Circus Subsidy
Ancient Rome gave away bread. We give away television. % of television-watching population which receives their television signal over-the-air, and will be affected by this cutover: 16.2 % of population which receives their signal from cable, and thus unaffected: 57 … Continue reading
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A Reminder
In this political season, it’s helpful to remember that it’s all about popular. … think of Celebrated heads of state, Or specially great communicators! Did they have brains or knowledge? Don’t make me laugh! They were POPULAR! Please! It’s all … Continue reading
