The lead article in the current AER is available here (gated, apparently, though the link isn’t working; h/t Tom Bozzo [on FB] and Brad DeLong; I was using the paper copy). The most interesting part so far: the authors only considered the documented costs of air pollution—not land, not water—in deriving the (embarrassingly negative) ROI […]

Brad DeLong points us to a post from The Nation on early Koch brothers and Hayek The Road to Serfdom!! Yasha Levine and Mark Ames: Charles Koch to Friedrich Hayek: Use Social Security!: [I]n early June 1973, weeks after [Charles] Koch was appointed president of the Institute for Humane Studies. Along with his brothers, Koch […]

by Mike Kimel It has been a very long time since I looked at the National Review. Apparently it is still there. Jonah Goldberg (apparently also still there) had a post that begins like this: And now let us recall the “Fable of the Shoes.” In his 1973 Libertarian Manifesto, the late Murray Rothbard argued […]

By Linda Beale Disaster Aid Disaster Averted, barely. Once again, Republicans intent on obstructing the normal operation of the federal government unless they can extract cuts to programs they don’t like (in the name of deficit reduction) applied the combination of House recalcitrance and Senate anti-majoritarian filibuster to threaten a government shutdown and siderail needed […]

Think Progress carries quotes from the Presidential contenders and election slogans The release of this plan immediately spurred the natural Republican tax apoplexy, with the GOP presidential candidates decrying tax increases as a surefire way to destroy jobs: MITT ROMNEY: President Obama’s plan to raise taxes will have a crushing impact on economic growth. Higher […]

by Mike Kimel There’s a story going around in the news about a new prostate cancer drug. Here’s press release: A life-extending new drug to treat patients with advanced prostate cancer, developed by The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and The Royal Marsden Hospital, has received its UK license. Abiraterone acetate, marketed by Janssen under […]

Angry Bear contributor Rebecca Wilder has begun writing her own column, The Wilder View, at the internationally prestigious Economonitor (Nouriel Roubini). The Wilder View at Economonitor Europe: Why the One-Size-Fits-All Solution Won’t Work and Linking sovereign risk to corporate credit spreads in Europe …and is interviewed and quoted by Floyd Norris in the New York […]

Health Care Thoughts: No CLASS Act The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports, aka CLASS, was to be an integral part of PPACA (Obamacare), providing a funding source for some part of long-term care costs. When DHHS Secretary Sebelius declared she would have to fix the program because the poor design was not financially viable, […]

Talk is called “Neat, Plausible, and Wrong: the Deluded Discipline of Economics.” I have to quibble with the “plausible” portion: there is no possible way to rationalize contemporary Microeconomics with any reasonable conceit that the Macroeconomics produced are “first-best” or anything similar.* I doubt I’ll be there at 5:00, but certainly by 6:00. Hope to […]