This video featuring Bruce Bartlett and Yves Smith on Overhyping the Fiscal Cliff is worth watching. Independent political and economic analysts Bruce Bartlett and Yves Smith join Bill in a discussion that’s become as rare as it is necessary — why are Washington insiders talking about the deficit crisis and not the jobs crisis? Bartlett, […]
From David Zetland comes this re-posting from Aguanomics on addressing issues in the political economy for water. The political-economy of water…all in auctions I’ve been working on this idea for 5-6 years, and I think it has great potential for reallocating water while respecting the rights of existing users. It just came out in the Journal of Environmental […]
More on gun legislation and law: …the bottom line is that Liptak’s spot-on, and that I think that the Supreme Court will use that Illinois case that Liptak discusses to make clear that the Second Amendment is not absolute. The Illinois statute bars carrying any weapons in public, even unconcealed ones. I think that, 5-4, […]
There are a number of well thought out plans to handle the problems proposed by opponents of Social Security and also those concerned about its sustainability. To have our political and media debate confined to one item like chained-cpi should make any reasonable voter pause and wonder “Is that all? How dumb can we be?” […]
There is no crisis with Social Security. Social Security is not going broke. Social Security adds NOTHING to the deficit. Social Security is not welfare. Update: Pelosi says she can live with it There are many options to address issues for the program, which are not offered as part of Pres. Obama’s insistence on keeping […]
Mish Shedlock points to this video of an automated Greek slaughter house, and opines: Automation Rules What can be automated, will. The number of things that can be automated increases every month
by Linda Beale Goggle’s Bermuda hideaway/HSBC’s too-big status: time to rein in the corporations! If you are a company that depends on IP for a lot of your revenue, you may be able to avoid considerable taxes by funneling profits from subsidiaries in high-tax countries into a Bermuda shell company. Google avoided about $2 billion […]
by Mike Kimel Whether you favor more gun control or less, via the less famous Roger Ailes, a story in Australian SkyNews on one of the very few things that can change the entire dynamic of the debate: Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has called on United Stateslawmakers to ban automatic weapons following the Connecticut schoolmassacre, alluding to […]
Robert Waldmann points to Song of PI: