Tariffs and Trade Volokh contributor Jacob Levy has a New Republic piece on protectionism, a subject that came up in one of Kash’s posts and the comments therein. Here’s Levy’s key paragraph, but read the whole thing: Agricultural protectionism–the combination of quotas, tariffs, and subsidies for farm products–may be the purest example of destructive special-interest […]
Stop Watching Ads I’m think that Salon is worth the price, Sully and Horowitz notwithstanding. Right now, they’ve got a great deal: Get “Lies” for free. Get a FREE copy of Joe Conason’s new book “Big Lies” when you subscribe to Salon Premium today. Hurry, quantities are limited AB
Life and Liberty (.gov) In the car yesterday, I caught the tail end of a radio editorial by a guy named Dave Ross, who apparently has a talk show in Seattle and also does syndicated commentary for CBS radio. This particular editorial was on the government’s relax, don’t worry about your civil liberties site, www.lifeandliberty.gov, […]
I’m Back! The vacation was great, though I’ve lost track of current events somewhat. Fortunately, reading the bloggers on the left (that is, the left panel of this web page) and the links therein should catch me up nicely. Special thanks to Kash for filling in during my absence. I think he did a great […]
Fox Loses From the AP: U.S. District Judge Denny Chin said the book β “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right” β is a parody protected by the First Amendment. “There are hard cases and there are easy cases,” the judge said. “This is an easy […]
Hypnotic Wow, now this is a story from today’s Guardian that has nothing to do with anything, but is simply bizarre.
Semi-Daily Agreement Brad DeLong also finds the simmering protectionism among IT workers interesting: link. I agree with Brad that, at least in part, this is a reflection of the quintissential (and predictable) rise in protectionist sentiment during economic downturns. The new thing about it this time is the population that’s feeling those anti-trade urges — […]
Rising Interest Rates, Falling Consumer Spending… Looks like yet another down day for bonds, which means another up day for interest rates. The sharpest climb in long-term interest rates in US history is continuing, from about 3.2% to about 4.5% in just two months. (See chart below of the yield on the 10 year government […]
Bush Administration Revises History (Again) This is too good. The White House is going around their websites and adding the word “major” to pages that for the past 3 months have read “President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended.” Here’s the link. After all, why admit you were wrong when you can just […]
Grim Possibilities in Iraq Those of us who talked about the dangers of invading Iraq back in 2002 are — unfortunately — being completely vindicated. In October 2002, at a public talk on the possible economic effects of invading Iraq, I mentioned the probability that the post-war would require hundreds of thousands of US troops […]