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

Economics

• Gross Domestic Happiness?, by Brian Domitrovic

Wall Street Journal: “Why the French want to redefine economic growth.”

Health Care Reform

• Health ‘Reform’ Is Income Redistribution, by Michael Leavitt, Al Hubbard and Keith Hennessey

Wall Street Journal: “Let’s have an honest debate before we transfer more money from young to old.”

• Why Medical Malpractice Is Off Limits, by Philip Howard

Wall Street Journal: “A few thousand trial lawyers have a lock on Democrats, who refuse to consider any legal reform.”

• Health Co-Ops Aren’t the Answer, by William Winkenwerder

Wall Street Journal: “Insurance competition across state lines is a better idea.”

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

Economics

• A Bug, Not a Feature, by Greg Mankiw
• Quality Reporting Doesn’t Come Cheap, by Peter R. Kann

Wall Street Journal: “The decline of newspapers is a tragedy for democracy. How can it be stopped?”

Financial Crisis

• One Year Later, by Duncan Niederauer

Wall Street Journal: “Reform of Wall Street means smarter financial regulation, not over-regulation.”

Foreign Policy

• The Afghan Imperative, by David Brooks

New York Times: “Fighting the Afghan war the easy way hasn’t worked. Only the full counterinsurgency doctrine offers a chance of success.”

Health Care Reform

• If air travel worked like health care, by Jonathan Rauch
• Updated legislative scenarios for health reform, by Keith Hennessey
• The Fight Over Flexible Spending Accounts, by Ron Lieber

New York Times: “To help pay for a health care bill, one proposal involves capping the amount people can put into special accounts for health-related spending.”

Here’s a classic example of a tax increase on the middle class that won’t be called (by the political class, anyway) a tax increase. 

Miscellaneous

• Morals Class Is Starting; Please Pass the Popcorn, by Patricia Cohen

New York Times: “Michael J. Sandel’s “Justice,” long one of the most popular classes at Harvard, will now be available for free online and on public television.”

Politics

• Congress Needs a 72-Hour Waiting Period, by John Fund

Wall Street Journal: “Voters want enough time to debate bills. Nancy Pelosi doesn’t.”

• Interview with Mitch Daniels: ‘We Are the Initiators’, by Kim Strassel

Wall Street Journal: “The Indiana governor on how to be an activist—and also a popular—Republican conservative.”

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

Economics

• Nobel Prize Predictions, from Thompson Reuters
• Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Knowledge@Wharton: “The French president and Nobel Prize laureates want you to be happy – and a new economics study thinks you should be, too.”

Financial Crisis

• The Fed’s Job Is Only Half Over, by Kevin Warsh

Wall Street Journal: “The level of asset prices and associated risk premiums will demand careful assessment as we return to normal.”

Foreign Policy

• Commit to Afghanistan or Get Out, by Kori Schake

Wall Street Journal: “We shouldn’t send Americans to fight and die if we’re not in it to win.”

Health Care Reform

• Bad Medicine, by Pete du Pont

Wall Street Journal: “ObamaCare is hazardous to your health.”

• Understanding the Baucus health bill, by Keith Hennessey
• Doubling Down on a Flawed Insurance Model, by John Cogan, Glenn Hubbard, and Daniel Kessler

Wall Street Journal: “Obama’s plan takes the problems of the current system—mandates, runaway spending and more—and makes them worse.”

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

Financial Crisis

• Bank Pay and the Financial Crisis, by Jeffrey Friedman

Wall Street Journal: “G-20 accounting rules, not bank bonuses, put the system at risk.”

Health Care Reform

• J&J CFO: Biggest Nightmare Is Public Health Option, by David M. Katz

CFO Magazine: “The most damaging thing the reform effort could do would be to create a public option in which “pricing is so restricted and choice is so limited that there’s no incentive to innovate,” he added. “If the movement is toward not providing adequate reimbursement for research that’s done to create a new product, my fear is that not enough research will be done.”

• From Bismarck to Obama, by Daniel Henninger

Wall Street Journal: “If you are going to pass a Big Idea such as universal health insurance, you need to give the public a Big Reason.”

• The FDA Rejects Another Good Cancer Drug, by Matt Alsante

Wall Street Journal: “No wonder people are worried about bureaucrats controlling health care.”

• Medical Malpractice System Breeds More Waste, by David Leonhardt

New York Times: “Researchers estimate that doctors’ fear of lawsuits leads to up to $60 billion a year worth of wasteful treatment.”

Miscellaneous

• “I read Playboy for the articles”: Justifying and Rationalizing Questionable Preferences, by Zoe Chance and Michael I. Norton

Executive Summary: “We want others to find us good, fair, responsible and logical; and we place even more importance on thinking of ourselves this way. Therefore, when people behave in ways that might appear selfish, prejudiced, or perverted, they tend to engage a host of strategies designed to justify questionable behavior with rational excuses: “I hired my son because he’s more qualified.” “I promoted Ashley because she does a better job than Aisha.” Or, “I read Playboy for the articles.””

• Dust storm in Australia, from the Boston Globe’s “Big Picture” blogsite

Boston Globe: “A huge outback dust storm – 500 km (310 mi) wide by 1,000 km (620 mi) long – swept across eastern Australia and blanketed Sydney on Wednesday, September 23rd, disrupting flights and ground transportation and forcing people indoors for shelter from the hazardous air, gale-force winds, and in some places hailstorms. Those few who ventured outside, especially at dawn, were greeted by a Martian sky, familiar landmarks blotted out by the heavy red dust blowing by. Collected here are a few photos of the worst dust storm Sydney has seen in 70 years, three of which you can click to see a before/after fade effect. (26 photos total).”

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

Economics

• The More the Merrier: Population Growth Promotes Innovation, by Casey B. Mulligan

Financial Crisis

• Bank Pay Controls Aren’t the Answer, by Andy Kessler

Wall Street Journal: “It was leverage, not a ‘thirst’ for risk, that toppled the financial system.”

Health Care Reform

• To Explain Longevity Gap, Look Past Health System, by John Tierney

New York Times: “Researchers calculated that if deaths due to smoking were excluded, the United States would rise to the top half of the rankings for developed countries.”

Foreign Policy

• Obama and the Politics of Concession, by Mark Helprin

Wall Street Journal: “Iran and Russia put Obama to the test last week, and he blinked twice.”

Public Policy

• Our $2 Trillion Bridge to Nowhere, by Stephen Moore

Wall Street Journal: “Americans believe Washington squanders half of every tax dollar.”

Statistics

• Lottery Math 101, by Carl Bialik

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

Economics and the Financial Crisis

• Taxes, Depression, and Our Current Troubles, by Art Laffer

Wall Street Journal: “Tariffs, rising state and federal taxes, and currency devaluation ruined the 1930s, and they could do the same today.”

Foreign Policy

• Summits of Folly, by Bret Stephens

Wall Street Journal : “Mr. Obama bankrupts his country while appeasing his foe.”

• Obama’s Befuddling Afghan Policy

Wall Street Journal : “Why is the president hesitating on more troops to fight his ‘war of necessity’?”

Game Theory

• Game theory and pricing cell phone minutes, by Presh Talwalkar

Miscellaneous

• Three Cheers for Irving, by David Brooks

New York Times : “The 24 recipients of the “genius awards” include a poet, a scientist, a journalist, a mixed-media artist and others.”

• For MacArthur Grants, Another Set of ‘Geniuses’, by Felicia R. Lee

New York Times : “Irving Kristol thrust himself into every ideologically charged battle of his age, but he was able to pick a side without losing his clarity.”

Statistics

• Counting the Tea Party Protesters, by Carl Bialik
• Heading Home: Getting to First Base, by Doug Glanville

New York Times: “In professional baseball, the leadoff hitter has a relentless job, with expectations to get on base by any means necessary and to wreak havoc on opponents when possible.”

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

Economics

• The Debt Clock

Freakonomics: “In the spirit of its Big Mac Index, The Economist rolled out its Global Debt Clock, which features a running global-public-debt tally.”

• Back in Demand, by Greg Mankiw

Wall Street Journal: “A great thinker has his admirers and detractors. Do his ideas logically cohere?”

Financial Crisis

• Maybe Securitization Didn’t Cause the Crisis, by Zubin Jelveh

Health Care Reform

• Why Health Care Will Never be Equal, by Greg Mankiw
• A Growth Vision for Health Reform, by Newt Gingrich

Wall Street Journal: “Why limit an innovative industry to a certain percent of GDP?”