Assorted Links (8/12/2010)

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

U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don’t Even Know It: Laurence Kotlikoff

www.bloomberg.com

Great read – hat tip to (my former student) Jason Gould: “Let’s get real. The U.S. is bankrupt. Neither spending more nor taxing less will help the country pay its bills.”

Timothy J. Muris: Antitrust in a High-Tech World – WSJ.com

online.wsj.com

“Former Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Timothy J. Muris, writes in The Wall Street Journal Europe that innovation suffers when regulators penalize businesses for their success in the marketplace.”

Allan H. Meltzer: Europe Jumps Off the Keynesian Bus – WSJ.com

online.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, economist Allan Meltzer notes that the economy is looking bright in Britain and Germany after those governments announced plans to reduce spending.”

Dan Henninger: Tolerance at Ground Zero – WSJ.com

online.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, Wonder Land columnist Dan Henninger writes that to reciprocate for the space his mosque is getting close to Ground Zero, Iman Rauf should defend Christian minorities in the Middle East.”

Unemployed Homeowners to Get $3 Billion in Aid – WSJ.com

online.wsj.com

“The Obama administration plans to add $2 billion to its Hardest Hit Fund and said HUD would launch a new $1 billion program to provide bridge loans to homeowners at risk for foreclosure. ”

Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.: End of the Net Neut Fetish – WSJ.com

online.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, Business World columnist Holman Jenkins explains what the Google-Verizon deal really means for the wireless future…?  Historians, if any are interested, will conclude that the unraveling of the net neutrality movement began when the iPhone appeared, instigating a tsunami of demand for mobile Web access.”

U.S. Study Indicates Driver Error in Many Toyota Crashes – WSJ.com

online.wsj.com

I can’t help but wonder what the implications of this study are for the civil litigation which is currently going on concerning “sudden acceleration incidents”, or SAI’s involving Toyota vehicles: “A government safety examination of Toyota vehicles involved in crashes attributed to sudden acceleration so far has not yielded evidence of flaws in Toyotas while pointing instead to driver error.”

Green Protectionism — The American, A Magazine of Ideas

www.american.com

“European policy makers and environmental groups want to restrict imports—but not in order to save the planet.”

Fouad Ajami: The Obsolescence of Barack Obama – WSJ.com

online.wsj.com

“In the Wall Street Journal, Fouad Ajami writes that Barack Obama’s will not be known as a transformative presidency.”

Ezra Klein – Where does the Laffer curve bend?

voices.washingtonpost.com

Interesting assortment of opinions about the relationship between marginal tax rates, government revenue, and GDP growth from leading economists and various other “experts”…

The New-Car Mating Dance – Freakonomics Blog – NYTimes.com

freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com

Interesting “case study” by Freakonomics author Steven Levitt concerning the impact of the Internet on the market for new cars: “Our minivan is ten years old, so we went out to buy a new one this weekend. In Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics, we write a lot about how the Internet has changed markets in which there are information asymmetries. Buying a new car gave me the chance to see first-hand these forces at work…”

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