Assorted Links (10/12/2011)

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

“But Economics is Not an Experimental Science,” C. Sims (2010)

afinetheorem.wordpress.com

“Christopher Sims, a winner of yesterday’s Nobel, wrote this great little comment in the Journal of Economic Perspectives last year that has been making the blog rounds recently.”

Free market groups: Federal earthquake insurance is a bad idea

outofthestormnews.com

“Should the federal government bail out state run disaster insurance programs? New legislation creating such a bailout is developing in Congress to strengthen earthquake insurance along the west coast.”

Peter Wallison: Wall Street’s Gullible Occupiers

online.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, Peter Wallison says the Occupy Wall Street protesters have been sold a bill of goods—reckless government policies, not private greed, brought about the housing bubble and resulting financial crisis.”

EU: 16 Steps Forward, One Giant Leap Back?

blogs.the-american-interest.com

“We are down to the final 12 speakers of the final parliamentary session before the (hopefully) final and (probably second to the last) vote in the last parliament on the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF), the €440 billion bailout fund to hold the eurozone together.”

Racist Republicans Flocking to Cain

blogs.the-american-interest.com

“Either a lot of Democrats have been slandering millions of American voters as racist, or the Tea Party hasn’t gotten the word that Herman Cain is African American.  That is the only conclusion that can be drawn after a slew of recent polls shows that Cain is picking up the ‘teavangelical’ vote…”

The Milquetoast Radicals

www.nytimes.com

“The Occupy Wall Street movement is playing small ball with false equivalencies.”

Occupied by Government

mises.org

“Many demands are being made, but sadly, if these were ever implemented, they would make problems worse by lowering the standard of living for all — especially for the poor! I will proceed to address some of the demands in plain English, hoping to reach out to them.” (Also see my blog posting “On the Optimality of Inequality” at http://wp.me/pBo4U-sq for a thought experiment which shows that inequality is inevitable in a free society.)

Notable & Quotable – WSJ.com

professional.wsj.com

“President John F. Kennedy on tax cuts in his 1963 State of the Union address.”

David R. Henderson: A Nobel for Non-Keynesians

professional.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, David R. Henderson describes the work of Thomas J. Sargent and Christopher A. Sims, who this week won the Nobel Prize in Economics after careers that demonstrated how people’s expectations about government policy make it difficult for officials to affect the economy…”

Review & Outlook: The Return of Rational Expectations

professional.wsj.com

“The Wall Street Journal writes that Nobel Prize economics winners Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims are out of step with the Keynesian vogue.”

Nobel for Sargent and Sims — Marginal Revolution

marginalrevolution.com

“The Nobel in Economics goes to Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims, for empirical macroeconomics.”

The federal family is faltering

www.timesunion.com

“In societies governed by persuasion, politics is mostly talk, so liberals’ impoverishment of their vocabulary matters. Having made federal spending suspect, they advocate “investments” — for “job creation,” a euphemism for stimulus, another word they have made toxic.”

How TV Debates Have Changed the Race

online.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, Fred Barnes notes that televised debates have dominated the GOP primary campaign, giving free publicity to marginal candidates, pitting all candidates against each other, and giving President Obama a pass.”

The Corporate Exec: Hollywood Demon

online.wsj.com

“Edward Jay Epstein writes in The Wall Street Journal that it’s no surprise protesters want to ‘occupy Wall Street,’ as Hollywood’s ubiquitous villains these days aren’t Nazis or Communists but businessmen.”

The Solyndra Economy

online.wsj.com

“The Wall Street Journal writes that Administration emails regarding the federal loan guarantee for the failed solar-panel company reveal the reality of politicized investing.”

Crovitz: Steve Jobs and the Future of Newspapers

online.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, Information Age columnist Gordon Crovitz recalls a conversation with Steve Jobs about newspapers, which he said would soon all be online.”

Wall Street Disgruntled Utopians

www.advancingafreesociety.org

“The Occupy Wall Street protestors are looking more and more like the shock troops of the Democratic Party’s electoral tactic of class warfare.”

Report: Millions of Jobs Heading Home from China

blogs.the-american-interest.com

“Time to pop the champagne? The return of manufacturing jobs from China to the US could generate as many as three million new jobs in the US by 2020, according to a new study by the well-regarded Boston Consulting Group.”

Putin Sees His Moment

blogs.the-american-interest.com

“For the past year, the debt crisis has monopolized Europe’s attention to the extent that many forgot the EU did anything besides argue about debt levels. Apparently many in Europe feel the same way, as efforts to bolster its relationships along its Eastern periphery — once a central focus of EU policy…”

Richard Green on the Mortgage Interest Deduction

econlog.econlib.org

Quoting from Professor Green’s congressional testimony on the mortgage interest deduction, “…the Mortgage Interest Deduction is a residual of the 1913 tax code, accomplishes little that its supporters claim for it, pushes capital away from plant and equipment toward housing, and benefits high income (although perhaps not very high income) households more than the remainder of the country.”