Assorted Links (12/31/2010)

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

American Robot’s Job Outsourced To Overseas Robot

theonion.com

“CANTON, OH—QT2D-7, an 11-year-old electric assembly-operations robot, was laid off Monday when the Lawn-Boy plant that has employed him relocated its manufacturing headquarters to New Delhi, India.”

Yule Blog 2010: Meaning in Three Dimensions

blogs.the-american-interest.com

“Now it gets tough. That little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying so cutely in the manger is the biggest trouble maker in world history, and the shocking claims that Christianity makes about who he is and what he means divide Christians not only from atheists and agnostics, but also splits Christians off from other religions.”

A New Year rolls in

boston.com

“The world has already begun to welcome 2011, as the New Year has been entered by people living on some Pacific islands, Australia and Asia.”

The Best Economics Blogs – The Source – WSJ

blogs.wsj.com

“Dow Jones Newswires columnist Alen Mattich shares his favorite blogs.”

Charles Krauthammer – Government by regulation. Shhh.

washingtonpost.com

“How to impose a liberal agenda on a center-right nation.”

RealClearMarkets – How to Reduce Unemployment to 4%

realclearmarkets.com

“In January 2001, at the start of this decade, America’s economy created 268,000 jobs, and the national unemployment rate stood at 4.2%. Five years later, after a so-called “jobless recovery,” the unemployment rate was 4.7%, with 193,000 new jobs created in January 2006. Now the rate is 9.8%, with a scant 39,000 jobs created last month.”

Yule Blog 2010: Personal Meaning

blogs.the-american-interest.com

“Yesterday I blogged about how theists and atheists are the not all that different from each other; we are almost all transcendentalists in the sense that almost all of us find some kind of moral, ethical and even spiritual meaning in life. Human life amounts to more than eating and scratching our various itches, and whether or not we believe in God, we want to do something real with our lives. We have itches that scratching won’t fix.”

Optimism for Obama Should Come With Caution

fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com

“What have we learned about President Obama’s re-election chances since the midterm elections?”

The Holiday Stimulus Package, Continued

economix.blogs.nytimes.com

“In the holiday season, too, demand remains strongly linked to supply, an economist writes.”

Yule Blog 2010: The Meaning of Christmas

blogs.the-american-interest.com

“Happy fifth day of Christmas, and welcome back to the 2010 Yule Blog, where we aim to keep the holiday fires burning right up through Twelfth Night on January 6.”

The Right Way to Balance the Budget

online.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, Andrew G. Biggs, Kevin Hassett and Matt Jensen of the American Enterprise Institute write that their research on the experience of 21 countries over 37 years yields a simple truth: Cutting spending works, and raising taxes doesn’t.”

Review & Outlook: A Deregulating Democrat

online.wsj.com

“The Wall Street Journal remembers Alfred Kahn, 1917-2010.”

Popes, Atheists and Freedom

online.wsj.com

“Daniel Henninger writes in The Wall Street Journal’s Wonder Land column that secularists should recognize that the pope’s fight is their fight.”

‘Death Panels’ Come Back to Life

online.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, David B. Rivkin Jr and Elizabeth Price Foley write that the FDA’s recent restrictions on the drug Avastin are the beginning of a long slide toward health-care rationing.”

The Mistaken Attack on Outsourcing

online.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, Mihir Desai of Harvard writes about his research showing that when American firms grow abroad, they also grow domestically.”

Why do firms exist?

economist.com

“FOR philosophers the great existential question is: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” For management theorists the more mundane equivalent is: “Why do firms exist? Why isn’t everything done by the market?” Today most people live in a market economy, and central planning is remembered as the greatest economic disaster of the 20th century.”