Assorted Links (7/19/2010)

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading lately:

David Cameron: A Staunch and Self-Confident Ally – WSJ.com

online.wsj.com

“British Prime Minister David Cameron writes in The Wall Street Journal that the U.S. and Britain have a clear common agenda: succeeding in Afghanistan, securing economic growth and fighting protectionism.”

You Don’t Have to Pay for Cable TV

www.moneytalksnews.com

“The average cable subscription costs $900 a year, but you can radically reduce that amount and still watch everything you want.”

Leeds: Chew on this: There is no surplus fairy for Social Security

www.statesman.com

Here’s the bottom line from Sandy Leeds’ editorial, published in today’s Austin American Statesman:

“The bottom line is that we’re in trouble. Social Security is woefully underfunded and Medicare is an even larger problem. This is going to increase the amount that we’re going to have to borrow from investors – and there’s no certainty that investors will always be willing to lend to us. Most importantly, we’re never going to solve these problems until the electorate understands the issues and starts to pressure our elected officials into making the hard (but right) decisions. We’re not doing anyone any favors by convincing them that we have “built up a big trust fund.””

Economics One: New Data Show the Debt Problem Is Spending (not Taxes) and Obamacare Worsens the Problem

johnbtaylorsblog.blogspot.com

Quoting from Stanford Professor John Taylor’s Blog (Economics One): “Everyone now seems to agree that the exploding federal debt is a serious problem that must be addressed. But how? The following … charts provide some data to help answer that question.”

Review & Outlook: A Climate Absolution? – WSJ.com

online.wsj.com

“A Wall Street Journal editorial says the global warming alarmists still won’t separate science from politics.”

Firms cancel health coverage

www.boston.com

Here’s what we have to look forward to as Obamacare starts to come “on line” (Massachusetts passed so-called Romneycare in 2006, and Obamacare structurally closely resembles Romneycare, only on a national as opposed to individual state level)… “The relentlessly rising cost of health insurance is prompting some small Massachusetts companies to drop coverage for their workers and encourage them to sign up for state-subsidized care instead, a trend that, some analysts say, could eventually weigh heavily on the state’s already-stressed budgets”.

Studying a Suicide Cluster at Foxconn – The Numbers Guy – WSJ

blogs.wsj.com

“To analyze whether a recent spate of suicides at a set of Chinese manufacturing facilities represents an unusual outbreak, it helps to make the right comparisons.”