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

Economics and Public Policy

• It’s Costing the Gov $600K to Create Each Job, by Casey Mulligan
• Why AT&T Killed Google Voice, by Andy Kessler
  WSJ: “Telecom operators are yesterday’s business. It’s time for a national data policy that encourages innovation.”
• Obama, In Rich Irony, Can’t Afford To Wage War On Nation’s Wealthy, by W. Michael Cox
  IBD: “Barack Obama’s political fate depends on a group of Americans he hasn’t done much to cultivate — the rich.”
• Brokers Aren’t Responsible for Bad Bets, by Charles Schwab
  WSJ: “To take the risk out of investing you’ll have to take Americans out of the market.”

Health Care Reform

• What are health care co-ops?, by Tyler Cowen
• ObamaCare Is All About Rationing, by Martin Feldstein
  WSJ: “Overspending is far preferable to artificially limiting the availability of new procedures and technologies.”
• The Death Book for Veterans, by Jim Twoey
  WSJ: “Ex-soldiers don’t need to be told they’re a burden to society.”
• ‘Death Panels’ Just A Rumor? Go Ask Ezekiel, by Thomas Sowell
  IBD: “There was a time when rushing a thousand-page bill through Congress so fast that no one has time to read it would have provoked public outrage….”
• What Do the U.S. and Turkmenistan Have in Common?, by Freakonomics
  Freakonomics: “Foreign Policy came up with a list of “The World’s Worst Healthcare Reforms”. Keeping company with Russia, China, and Turkmenistan is the good old U.S. of A.”

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

Financial Crisis

• The Charming World of Las Vegas Real Estate, by Donald Marron

Foreign Policy

• Talking to the Enemy, by Bret Stephens
  WSJ: “We should know better than to talk to the Irans and North Koreas of the world.”

Game Theory

• How to improve health care using game theory: the Prisoner’s Dilemma, by Presh Talwalkar

Health Care Reform

• Whole Foolishness
  WSJ: “The left boycotts a progressive retailer.”
• The Panel, by Andrew Klavan
  WSJ: “What death by bureaucratic fiat might look like.”

Politics

• Harry Reid’s ‘Evil’ Moment’, by William McGurn
  WSJ: “And Democrats wonder why their health plan isn’t selling.”
• Why Obama’s Ratings Are Sinking, by Arthur C. Brooks
  WSJ: “Americans will put up with a lot. But not with someone who imperils their future.”
• Young Voters Sought Change, Got Only Stasis, by Michael Barone

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

Economics

• The 50 Most Important Economic Theories, by Donald Marron

Health Care Reform

• We Don’t Spend Enough on Health Care, by Craig Karpel
  WSJ: “It’s crazy to adopt a bean-counting mentality amid revolutionary, albeit expensive, advances in medicine.”
• How American Health Care Killed My Father, by David Goldhill
  The Atlantic: “After the needless death of his father, the author, a business executive, began a personal exploration of a health-care industry that for years has delivered poor service and irregular quality at astonishingly high cost. It is a system, he argues, that is not worth preserving in anything like its current form. And the health-care reform now being contemplated will not fix it. Here’s a radical solution to an agonizing problem.”

Public Policy

• Why Government Can’t Run a Business, by John Steele Gordon
  WSJ: “Politicians need headlines. Executives need profits.”

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

• Why We Need Health Care Reform, by Barack Obama
• A Public Option Isn’t a Curse, or a Cure, by Richard Thaler

Game Theory

• Can Game Theory Predict When Iran Will Get the Bomb?, by Clive Thompson 

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

Politics

• From ‘Yes, We Can,’ to ‘No! Don’t!, by Peggy Noonan
  WSJ: “Obama turns out to be brilliant at becoming, not being, president.”

Health Care

• Obama’s Health Care Will Make It Worse, by Robert Samuelson
• The worst health care reform ever? and A very good article on health care economics, by Tyler Cowen
• Obama and the Practice of Medicine, by Scott Gottlieb
  WSJ: “Why is the president convinced so many doctors and patients are making irrational decisions?”
• President Obama on end-of-life care

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

Political Economy

• Latest Data on Transfers and Income, by Donald MarronDonald Marron documents in this as well as a series of recent posts the fact that Americans are getting an increasing portion of their income from the government.
• Tax Withholding Is Bad for Democracy, by Charles MurrayAEI’s Charles Murray argues that the incidence (and relative burden) of both income taxes (e.g., the top 1% of American households pay more in federal income taxes than the bottom 95% combined) and payroll taxes (the social security portion of which is regressive) is obscured by withholding at the workplace.  He argues that ending withholding and replacing it with quarterly payments of estimated taxes would be good for democracy by promoting a common understanding that we all pay a share of the costs of government.
• Will They Still Love Him Tomorrow?, by Daniel HenningerWSJ: “President Everyman is starting to look like a salesman for the superstate.”

Finance and Economics

• Remembering the Reagan Bull Market, by Jason TrennertWSJ: “In 1982, interest rates, inflation and taxes were all heading down. That’s hardly the case now.”

Health Care

• Rationing By Any Other Name, by Megan McArdle
  While the statement “we already ration health care; we just let the market do the rationing” is certainly true, it doesn’t logically support rationing by government fiat.  Ms. McArdle notes that the same (self-evident) statement can be made about virtually any other good; e.g., “We already ration food; we just let the market do the rationing”, or “We already ration gasoline; we just let the market do the rationing”, or “We already ration cigarettes; we just let the market do the rationing.”  Duh!

• Medicare For All Isn’t The Answer, by Allen B. Miller
  WSJ: “My company ran a hospital in London. We don’t want to go the government route.”

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

Catastrophes

• Nations Focus On Disaster Planning
  WSJ: “Two major earthquakes in Asia refocused attention on incomplete efforts to improve emergency planning after a tsunami killed more than 200,000 people in 2004.”

Economics

• Wonky Talk about Carbon Taxes, by Greg Mankiw
  My favorite econblogger provides a succinct explanation of the welfare economics of income taxes and carbon taxes.

Finance

• Obama Unveils Derivatives Plan
  WSJ: “The Obama administration detailed a sweeping plan to more closely oversee the giant market for derivatives.”
• Banking on a Rescue
  James Freeman’s review of Lawrence G. ­McDonald’s new book entitled “A Colossal Failure of Common Sense,” which portrays Lehman Brothers in crisis as it headed toward collapse last fall.

Health Care Reform

• Consumer Driven Health Care Plans, by Alex Tabarrok
  As the author notes, “It’s remarkable that in the current debate over how to control health care costs so little attention is being given to the important results of our 10-year experiment with consumer driven health plans.”

• The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare, by John Mackey
  John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, outlines “Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.”

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

Catastrophes

• Typhoon Morakot, from The Big Picture

Health Care

• A new paper on life expectancy, by Tyler Cowen
• Fishy statements about health care reform, by Keith Hennessey
• Prevention, Health Costs, and Value, by Donald Marron

Finance

• University of Chicago finance professor Eugene Fama on Market Efficiency in a Volatile Market

The Economy

• Are we pointed in the right direction yet?, by Keith Hennessey

Game Theory

• Pascal’s Wager inverted: all atheists go to heaven?, by Presh Talwalkar

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

Climate Change

• A Missed Opportunity on Climate Change

Health Care

• Does Prevention Reduce Costs?
• Health Care Mythology

The Economy

• Corporate Earnings Are No Sign of Recovery

Political Economy

• Our Unconstitutional Census

Miscellaneous

• History of Times New Roman
• How to Negotiate a Pay Raise With Game Theory
• How to work for a jerk: 4 tips