Debate Heats Up Over Stimulus Spending – WSJ.com

online.wsj.com

“Eighteen months after Obama administered a massive dose of spending increases and tax cuts, a fight has broken out about whether fiscal-stimulus medicine is curing the illness or making it worse.”  For a page 1 story of a major newspaper, I was pleasantly surprised by how well the reporter (Jon Hilsenrath) was able to summarize the empirical academic literature which assesses the relative efficacy of fiscal policy instruments such as deficit spending and tax cuts…

Robert M. Kimmitt and Matthew J. Slaughter: The Foreign Investment Solution for American Jobs – WSJ.

online.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, Robert M. Kimmitt and Matthew J. Slaughter write that the Obama administration can spur job growth for Americans by making it easier for foreign companies to do business in the United States.”

Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete and Yoweri Museveni: Free Trade and the Fight Against Malaria – WSJ.com

online.wsj.com

“Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni write in the Wall Street Journal that removing tariffs would be good for African health and for African entrepreneurs.”

Stephens: From WikiLeaks to the Killing Fields – WSJ.com

online.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, Global View columnist Bret Stephens says that liberals contemplate withdrawal from Afghanistan with no thought of the consequences.”

The Patriarch’s Will – a game theory puzzle – Mind Your Decisions

mindyourdecisions.com

“Here is a scenario which occurred many millennia ago: The patriarch of a wealthy family was on his deathbed and wanted to divide his gold among his eight sons who were all very, very greedy. Wishing to favor the oldest son (as tradition would have it) but also to reward the more cunning of his progeny, he made the following decree…”

The Costs of War – Freakonomics Blog – NYTimes.com

nytimes.com

“A new paper reviews war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

McGurn: Giving Lousy Teachers the Boot – WSJ.com

online.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, Main Street columnist William McGurn on bad teachers in D.C. who were booted by school chancellor Michelle Rhee.”

Science Turns Authoritarian — The American, A Magazine of Ideas

american.com

“Science is losing its credibility because it has adopted an authoritarian tone, and has let itself be co-opted by politics.”

The American Spectator : America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution

online.wsj.com

My friend Kevin Stuart (Ph.D. student in UT-Austin’s Department of Government) brought this very compelling essay to my attention the other day…

2010 Tour de France – part II – The Big Picture – Boston.com

boston.com

The Cop on the Banks of the Nile – WSJ.com

online.wsj.com

Fouad Ajami writes in The Wall Street Journal that no great upheaval has taken place in the Egypt of Hosni Mubarak. But the country has stagnated, and some of its children have blamed the U.S. and embraced terror.”

Fan and Fred and the Problem of Narrative – WSJ.com

online.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, Brian Carney notes that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s blunders don’t fit the left’s story about how greedy bankers caused the financial crisis. That’s why they haven’t been reformed.”

ATMs in Antarctica: An Interview With Wells Fargo’s David Parker

needcoffee.com

“I was fascinated when I learned that there was an ATM on Antarctica, specifically at McMurdo Station. Just because, you know, it’s not like your local ATM that they can zip a service tech out to. So to sate my curiosity, I gave a ping to Wells Fargo, who manages that ATM–and got a chance to chat with David Parker. All shall be explained.”

Hard Sell – WSJ.com

Source: online.wsj.com

“John Fund writes in The Wall Street Journal that ObamaCare appears more unpopular than ever.”

Chronicle of a Currency Crisis Foretold – Project Syndicate

Source: www.project-syndicate.org

“The crisis in Greece and the problems in Spain and Portugal have exposed the euro’s inherent flaws, and no amount of financial guarantees – much less rhetorical reassurance – from the EU can paper them over. While the euro is likely to survive the current crisis, not all of the eurozone’s current members may be there a year from now.”

Progressives, Jim Crow, and Selective Amnesia

Source: www.american.com

“The Rand Paul episode reveals a drastic misreading of history and of the government’s role in ending racial discrimination in this nation.”

America’s New Jobs Bill – WSJ.com

Source: online.wsj.com

“The Wall Street Journal dissects this week’s stimulus bill.”

Money Market Funds Missing from the Senate Bill – Regulating Wall Street

Source: w4.stern.nyu.edu

“Money market funds are the stepchild of finance. Even though they manage more than $4 trillion in assets, you won’t find them in the Senate’s financial reform bill from last Thursday. Is this justified?”    

Not just their Big Fat Greek Funeral – Mark Steyn – Macleans.ca

Source: www2.macleans.ca

“As lazy, feckless, corrupt and violent as Greece undoubtedly is, it’s not that untypical…”

That’s Rich at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas.

Source: www.thebigquestions.com

“It’s now crystal clear what the Tea Party stands for, says Frank Rich midway through a column that makes it crystal clear what Frank Rich stands for, and it isn’t pretty.”    

Stimulus Surprise: Companies Retrench When Government Spends – HBS Working Knowledge

Source: hbswk.hbs.edu “New research from Harvard Business School suggests that federal spending in states appears to cause local businesses to cut back rather than grow. A conversation with Joshua Coval.”

Game Theory TV – Freakonomics Blog – NYTimes.com

Source: freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com “Game theory lessons on YouTube.”

Review & Outlook: The New Lords of Finance – WSJ.com

Source: online.wsj.com “The Wall Street Journal editorial page says that Congress’s financial reform is a marriage of Big Finance and Big Government.”

Roberts on the Crisis | EconTalk | Library of Economics and Liberty

Source: www.econtalk.org

“Russ Roberts, host of EconTalk, discusses his paper, “Gambling with Other People’s Money: How Perverted Incentives Created the Financial Crisis.” Roberts reflects on the past eighteen months of podcasts on the crisis, and then turns to his own take, a narrative that emphasizes the role of government rescues of creditors and the incentives this created for imprudent lending. He also discusses U.S. housing policy, particularly the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and how the government’s implicit guarantee of lenders to the GSE’s interacted with housing policy to increase housing prices. This in turn, Roberts argues, helped create the subprime market, created mainly by private investors. The episode closes with some of Roberts’s doubts about his narrative.”    

Consumer Financial Protection–the Good, the Bad and the Ugly – Regulating Wall Street

Source: w4.stern.nyu.edu

“On Thursday the Senate passed its version of the financial reform bill, and the reconciliation process with the previously passed House bill will now begin. What are the implications for consumer protection? The similarities between the two bills in the area of consumer protection and more notable than their differences, but there are some distinctions to keep in mind and some troubling issues common to both bills. Consumer protection is a worthy goal, especially given some of the documented abuses leading up to and during the financial crisis, but bad regulation may be worse than under-regulation.”    

Economic View – Greece May Not Be as Rich as It Looks – NYTimes.com

Source: www.nytimes.com

“Europe no longer pretends Greece is wealthy. Now the Continent acts as though Greece will quickly become wealthy enough to pay back ever-growing sums of debt.”

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.”

Economics and the Financial Crisis

• In the World of Banks, Bigger Can Be Better, by Charles Calomiris

“We can solve the too-big-to-fail problem without losing the benefits of a global financial system.”

• The jobs battle, by Keith Hennessey
• A Sickening Deficit, by Alex Brill and Amy Roden

“The ‘American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009’ (ARRA), was rushed through Congress on the grounds that fast-acting and temporary measures were needed to counteract the recession… All told, the Obama administration’s budget seeks to make at least 37% of ARRA’s spending and tax cuts permanent on an annual basis.”

Game Theory

• Fair division in homeowner association fees, by Presh Talwalkar

Miscellaneous

• Saturn at equinox, from the Boston Globe’s “Big Picture” blogsite

“Checking in with NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, our current emissary to Saturn, some 1.5 billion kilometers (932 million miles) distant from Earth, we find it recently gathering images of the Saturnian system at equinox. During the equinox, the sunlight casts long shadows across Saturn’s rings, highlighting previously known phenomena and revealing a few never-before seen images. Cassini continues to orbit Saturn, part of its extended Equinox Mission, funded through through September 2010. A proposal for a further extension is under consideration, one that would keep Cassini in orbit until 2017, ending with a spectacular series of orbits inside the rings followed by a suicide plunge into Saturn on Sept. 15, 2017. (previously: 1, 2, 3). (23 photos total)”

Politics

• Fiddling While Rome Burns, by Jeffrey Miron
• Time for Inaction on Global Warming, by Pete DuPont

“Congress should consider the costs before passing ‘cap and trade.’”

• Does Obama Believe in Human Rights?, by Bret Stephens

“Human rights “interfere” with President Obama’s campaign against climate change.

Economics

• Parsing the intellectual contributions of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics laureates, Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson.

The day after the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics was announced, there are all sorts of interesting commentaries emerging that parse the intellectual contributions of the new laureates, Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson (including commentaries from past winners of the Prize):

• A Nobel for Practical Economics, by David Henderson

  “One winner helped us understand the social benefits of mergers, the other how to take care of common resources.”
  

• Governing The Commons, by Vernon L. Smith (2002 Nobel Prize Laureate)
  
• Markets Aren’t Everything, by Michael Spence (2001 Nobel Prize Laureate)

Game Theory

• Lying students and games of coordination, by Presh Talwalkar

Health Care Reform

• Higher premiums and lower wages, by Keith Hennessey

Policy wonk Keith Hennessey offers a critical assessment concerning both the content and political economy of AHIP’s (America’s Health Insurance Plans) controversial PricewaterhouseCoopers research report.

Politics

• A Perfect Nobel Pick, by Bret Stephens

“The committee didn’t recognize Truman, after all.”

Science

• The Young and the Neuro, by David Brooks

“The work being done by members of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society isn’t dehumanizing at all, and it is leading to a host of revelations about how people interact.”

Science and Religion

• God vs. Science Isn’t the Issue, by William McGurn

“Seldom do we act as if life has no moral component.”

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.”

Catastrophes

• One year after Hurricane Ike, from the Boston Globe’s “Big Picture” blogsite

Boston Globe: “One year after Hurricane Ike tore across the gulf coast of Texas, residents paused on Sunday to observe the anniversary of the costliest natural disaster in Texas history. Destroying or damaging many thousands of houses, including 3/4 of all homes in Galveston, Ike’s 110 mph winds caused more than $29 billion in damage, and took the lives of at least 72 in the United States. In Galveston one year later, 75% of businesses have reopened, much of the debris has been cleared, and 95% of the population has returned, but much work still remains to be done as residents continue to rebuild and recover. Collected here are a series of before-and-after photographs – which (starting with the second one below) will fade between “before” and “after” when clicked. (13 photo pairs total)”

Economics

• The Simple Economics of Student Loan Crises, by Donald Marron

Donald Marron notes that the student loan crises of 2006–2007 and 2008 “…had the same root cause: the fact that the government, rather than market forces, determined how much lenders were paid for making guaranteed student loans. In both cases, the government got the payment levels wrong, and the crises followed soon thereafter.”

Financial Crisis

• Lehman and the Financial Crisis, by John Cochrane and Luigi Zingales

Wall Street Journal: “The lesson is that institutions that take trading risks must be allowed to fail.”

Game Theory

• Game theory links 9-15-09, by Presh Talwalkar

Foreign Policy

• Obama Is Pushing Israel Toward War, by Bret Stephens

Wall Street Journal: “President Obama can’t outsource matters of war and peace to another state.”

Health Care Reform

• Government Medicine vs. the Elderly, by Rupert Darwall

Wall Street Journal: “In Britain in 2007-08, 16.5% of deaths came after ‘terminal sedation.’”