Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading lately:
Apple Now Has More Cash Than The U.S. Government
finance.yahoo.com
Hat tip to my good friend Ebbesen Davis for pointing this fact out to me!
The Road to a Downgrade
professional.wsj.com
“The Wall Street Journal gives a short history of the entitlement state.”
Warren Buffett Is Wrong on Taxes
professional.wsj.com
“In The Wall Street Journal, Stephen Moore writes that millionaires and billionaires already pay a higher share of their income in taxes than the middle class.”
The GOP’s Secret Weapon—Flower Power
professional.wsj.com
“In The Wall Street Journal, Karlyn Bowman and Andrew Rugg write that aging baby boomers increasingly identify as conservative.”
China’s Banned Churches Defy Regime
professional.wsj.com
The struggle between China’s underground Protestant churches and the government is shaping up as the tensest standoff over religious freedom in China since a brutal crackdown on Falun Gong in 1999.
Emergency Team Of 8th-Grade Civics Teachers Dispatched To Washington
theonion.com
“With lawmakers still at an impasse over increasing the debt ceiling, a special team of 40 eighth-grade civics teachers was air-dropped into Washington earlier today in a last-ditch effort to teach congressional leaders how the government’s legislative process works.”
professional.wsj.com
“Robert Rector on quality of life and the American poor.”
professional.wsj.com
“We’ll have to wait for 2012, because this administration won’t administer it, Pete du Pont writes.”
Amy Winehouse’s Killers
professional.wsj.com
“In The Wall Street Journal, Sally Satel writes that attributing the British pop star’s demise to addiction is a regrettable oversimplification of what went wrong.”
slate.com
“The journalist and writer Anya Kamenetz once said that graduate students are “really smart suckers,” and I—as a Ph.D. who teaches at a liberal arts college—couldn’t agree more. It’s my view that higher education in the humanities exists mainly to provide cheap, inexperienced teachers for undergraduates so that a shrinking percentage of tenured faculty members can meet an ever-escalating demand for specialized research.”
Robin Hood Can’t Lead Us Out of the Debt Hole
online.wsj.com
“Robert Barro of Harvard University writes in The Wall Street Journal that President Obama’s obsession with higher taxes on the rich isn’t helpful.”
Five Facts About the Debt
reason.com
“Setting the economic record straight.”
Chart of the Day: The Higher Education Bubble
blog.american.com
“AEI’s Michael Barone wrote recently about the higher education bubble, which could also described as a “low-interest education loan bubble” to reflect the government’s role in subsidizing higher education, similar to its role in subsidizing homeownership.”
Tim Groseclose’s New Book on Liberal Media Bias
freakonomics.com
“My good friend and co-author Tim Groseclose has a new book out entitled Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind. As the title suggests, it has a definite conservative slant. It is not, however, a right-wing rant by any means. Rather, it is a carefully researched and amusingly written book by a highly regarded academic.”
Health Is the Health of the State
www.american.com
“Between 1966 and 2007, the entire increase in the size of government relative to the economy resulted from growth in tax-financed health spending.”
Why the Fed Is Not Independent
professional.wsj.com
“In The Wall Street Journal, Gerald O’Driscoll writes that the Federal Reserve’s foray into fiscal policy makes for a volatile political mix that all but guarantees control from without.”
professional.wsj.com
“The Wall Street Journal writes that ObamaCare may cause small businesses to drop insurance coverage.”
The Debt Ceiling and the Pursuit of Happiness
professional.wsj.com
“In The Wall Street Journal, Arthur C. Brooks writes that a welfare state that led to permanent austerity would betray the principles that have made American culture exceptional.”
The Downside of Mandated Sick Leave
professional.wsj.com
“Nearly 30% of its lowest-wage earners reported reduced hours or layoffs after San Francisco passed a paid-leave ordinance.”
Toying With Default
professional.wsj.com
“The President isn’t serious about real spending cuts.”
economist.com
“TIM LEE asks an important question: why are conservatives and libertarians so uniformly hawkish about inflation? Mr Lee (a friend and former colleague) notes that this regularity is far from inevitable.”
Greg Mankiw Recommends Reading These 18 Economics Books
farnamstreetblog.com
“If you’d like to read more about economics issues try these 18 books reccommended by Greg Mankiw, author of Principles of Economics.”
27 Club: Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain & Other Members
thedailybeast.com
“With her death this week, Grammy-winning retro-singer Amy Winehouse joined a tragically long list of iconic, often tortured artists who died at 27, including Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Together, they are known as the “27 Club.” Read their stories.”
U.S. Default Insurance Has Quirks
professional.wsj.com
“Investors looking for protection against a U.S. debt default could be in for a surprise. In the market for credit default swaps, it is currently more expensive to buy one-year insurance on Treasurys than on junk-rated Indonesian bonds.”