Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Economics

• Paul A. Samuelson, Economist, Dies at 94, by Michael Weinstein

The Economy

• Tax Cuts Might Accomplish What Spending Hasn’t, by Greg Mankiw

“LIKE our doctor facing a mysterious illness, economists should remain humble and open-minded when considering how best to fix an ailing economy. A growing body of evidence suggests that traditional Keynesian nostrums might not be the best medicine.”

Health Care Reform

• The ‘Cost Control’ Bill of Goods

“How Peter Orszag and the White House sold a health-care illusion.”

Politics and Public Policy

• Congress’s Long-Term Care Bomb, by Scott Harrington

“The public is growing wary of the cost of ObamaCare. Yet there is one budget-busting provision that hasn’t received the attention it deserves: a new long-term care entitlement.”

• The New Socialism, by Charles Krauthammer

“Socialism having failed so spectacularly, the left was adrift until it struck upon a brilliant gambit: metamorphosis from red to green. The cultural elites went straight from the memorial service for socialism to the altar of the environment. The objective is the same: highly centralized power given to the best and the brightest, the new class of experts, managers and technocrats. This time, however, the alleged justification is not abolishing oppression and inequality but saving the planet.”

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Financial Crisis and Public Policy

• Wall Street Reform Hits Main Street, by Gregory Zerzan

“A bill in the House threatens to impose a massive tax on America’s most successful companies by subjecting them to bank-style regulation.”

• Do We Really Need a Systemic Regulator?, by Hal Scott

“Based on what we now know about AIG, it’s unclear ‘too big to fail’ institutions are in fact too big to fail.”

Health Care Reform

• Do Americans Want Health Care Reform, or Not?, by Megan McArdle

Apparently not, and for some rather surprising reasons, according to Ms. McArdle.  Also, as is evident from this graphic from her article, the rate of change in the trendlines for and against has begun (since November) to increase at “alarming” rates…

• ObamaCare Keeps Falling in the Polls, by John Fund

“A business ad campaign could turn the tide even in the House.”

Politics

• ObamaJobs: Uncle Sam’s Hiring Hall, by Daniel Henninger

“The U.S. can’t have new entrepreneurs and tax them too.”

• Obama Moves Toward Center Stage, by Peggy Noonan

“If he’s going to bow to something, it might as well be reality.”

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

The Economy

• The President’s new economic proposal, by Keith Hennessey

Health Care Reform

• The Imprecision Behind Mammogram Guidance, by Carl Bialik

“Recent Research on Breast-Cancer Screening Incorporates Wide Margins of Error; Scientists Defend ‘Qualitative Assessment’”

Public Policy

• A Transaction Tax Would Hurt All Investors, by Burton Malkiel and George Sauter

“The unintended consequences of the ‘Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Act.’”

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Economics and Public Policy

• An Empire at Risk, by Niall Ferguson

“We won the cold war and weathered 9/11. But now economic weakness is endangering our global power.”

Finance

• Fama Lecture: Masters of Finance

“From the American Finance Association’s “Masters in Finance” video series, Eugene F. Fama presents a brief history of the efficient market theory. The lecture was recorded at the University of Chicago in October 2008 with an introduction by John Cochrane.”

Foreign Policy

• Obama’s hollow speech on Afghanistan, by Charles Krauthammer

“We shall fight in the air, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, we shall fight in the hills — for 18 months. Then we start packing for home.”

Game Theory

• Game theory on Colbert Report – mutually assured destruction, by Presh Talwalkar
• Game theory in Numb3rs: hide and seek, by Presh Talwalkar

Health Care Reform

• Kill the bills. Do health reform right., by Charles Krauthammer

“The United States has the best health care in the world — but because of its inefficiencies, also the most expensive. The fundamental problem with the 2,074-page Senate health-care bill (as with its 2,014-page House counterpart) is that it wildly compounds the complexity by adding hundreds of new provisions, regulations, mandates, committees and other arbitrary bureaucratic inventions.”

Politics

• My Big Fat Government Takeover, by William McGurn

“Rule by the best and the brightest.”

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Financial Crisis

• Systemic Risk and Fannie Mae

“The education of Joe Stiglitz and Peter Orszag.”

Foreign Policy

• The Arabs Have Stopped Applauding Obama, by Fouad Ajami 

 “A foreign policy of penance has won America no friends.”

Law and Economics

• Terror by Trial Lawyer, by William McGurn

“Arlen Specter would make it easier for terrorists to sue.”

Science and Public Policy

• Climategate: Follow the Money, by Bret Stephens

“Climate change researchers must believe in the reality of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God. ”

• The Climate Science Isn’t Settled, by Richard Lindzen

“Confident predictions of catastrophe are unwarranted.”

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Financial Crisis

• Lack of Candor and the AIG Bailout, by Peter Wallison

“If AIG wasn’t too big to fail, why did the government rescue it? And why do we need to turn the financial system upside down?”

Politics

• He Can’t Take Another Bow, by Peggy Noonan

“An icon of a White House that is coming to seem amateurish.”

Public Policy

• Cap and Trade Is Dead, by Kim Strassel

“The recently disclosed emails and documents from University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit compromise the integrity of the United Nations’ global warming reports.”

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Economics

• Obamanomics, by Jeffrey Miron

“Harvard economics guru beaks down Obamas’ income redistribution plan.”

Health Care Reform

• The Other Senate Maverick, by William McGurn

“Joe Lieberman is a party apostate on health care.”

• Healthcare Reform and the Big Tradeoff, by Greg Mankiw
• The Values Question, by David Brooks

“Like all great public issues, the health care debate is fundamentally about values, about whether we have a moral preference for vitality or security.”

Highly Recommended

• Happy Franksgiving, by Melanie Kirkpatrick

“How FDR tried, and failed, to change a national holiday.”

• The Desolate Wilderness, by Nathaniel Morton

“A chronicle (written in 1620) of the Pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton, keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of William Bradford, sometime governor thereof.”

Public Policy

• Homebuyer Tax Credits Threaten the FHA, by Robert Pozen

“Funding a down payment with the credit increases the odds the buyer will default.”

Risk & Uncertainty

• The Uncertainty Economy

“Nurturing a fragile economic recovery into a durable expansion requires policies that restore public confidence and reassure investors, risk-takers and employers. The Democratic agenda is doing precisely the opposite, which is how you get subpar growth and fewer new jobs.”

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Economics

• Krugman to the Rescue, by Steve Landsburg

Financial Crisis

• Why No One Expects a Strong Recovery, by Jeb Hensarling and Paul Ryan

“When you repeal sound economic policies you repeal their results.” 

Law

• Travesty in New York, by Charles Krauthammer

“For late-19th-century anarchists, terrorism was the “propaganda of the deed.” And the most successful propaganda-by-deed in history was 9/11 — not just the most destructive, but the most spectacular and telegenic.”

Politics

• Help Wanted, by Kim Strassel

“The Democratic Party seeks a wildly optimistic individual to oversee a national jobs-creation program.”

• Medicalizing mass murder, by Charles Krauthammer

“What a surprise — that someone who shouts “Allahu Akbar” (the “God is great” jihadist battle cry) as he is shooting up a room of American soldiers might have Islamist motives. It certainly was a surprise to the mainstream media, which spent the weekend after the Fort Hood massacre playing down Nidal Hasan’s religious beliefs.”

Religion

• The China President Obama Didn’t See, by Leslie Hook

“Dissident intellectuals have been attracted to Christianity.”