Dani Rodrik does a wonderful job framing politically framed economics and our American experience. Worth reading the whole thing. By overlooking the problems created by trade in instances where regulatory arbitrage does play an important role, we miss the opportunity to celebrate the kind of globalization where such arbitrage doesn’t play a role. The latter […]

By: Divorced one like Bush From this story at Common Dreams comes the news that Senator Obama has chosen Jason Furman as an economic advisor. The story notes Mr. Furman’s fame for his defending of the Walmart model. The one that states Walmart is helping the less fortunate. I don’t buy it in the big […]

Welcome to the Partner Blog for the National Dialogue! June 5th, 2008 by admin EPA is holding an on-line discussion among state, tribe, and other federal partners of EPA, as well as the public to foster collaboration on information access. For this discussion, we are using a blog which is a more interactive and personal […]

by rdan The Economist reports on troubles in Mexico around corn tortillas. Last year there were demonstrations about a significant rise in prices for corn tortillas. From research I learned that 50% of the people in Mexico earn $5 or less per day, with the corn tortilla being the mainstay of diet…Indeed, the average Mexican […]

by rdan GAO 08782T and GAO-08-847Tor testimony at a congressional hearing on defense spending reports the following: …the Department of Defense’s (DOD) management of its major weapon system acquisitions—an area that has been on GAO’s high risk list since 1990. Prior to and since that time, Congress and DOD have continually explored ways to improve […]

By: Divorced one like BushUpdate: Link for Import Certificates fixed Via Howard Richman’s blog comes this by idea by Buffet: Import Certificates. You have to read down a ways before he gets to the idea. “We would achieve this balance by issuing what I will call Import Certificates (ICs) to all U.S. exporters in an […]

It’s amazing how any discussion of the minimum wage brings out all kinds of discussion and comments. We have a school of thought that believes very strongly that increases in the minimum wage causes firms to fire minimum wage workers, so higher minimum wages harm the very people it is designed to help. I am […]

The NYT reports: State and city governments have yet to shrink the economy; indeed, they have even managed to prop it up. They have quietly maintained their spending at pre-crisis levels even as they warn of numerous cutbacks forced on them by declining tax revenues. The cutbacks, however, are written into budgets for a fiscal […]

by rdan In April, the Pentagon split its largest military contract in Iraq – formerly belonging to the Houston-based corporation KBR, Inc. – among companies Fluor and DynCorp, in addition to KBR. A fourth company, the British-American service provider Serco, is responsible for managing and overseeing the other three, according to its contract, signed last […]

by rdan Forbes reports: In total, the global 2000 companies now account for $30 trillion in revenues, $2.4 trillion in profits, $119 trillion in assets and $39 trillion in market value. Around the world, 72 million people work for these companies.…The U.S. still dominates this list of global giants, but with 61 fewer entries than […]