Go read Mark Thoma. Because he’s a kinder, gentler human being than I am: The time to stand up to the budget busting was when it happened, and when members of the list had the power to affect policy, not many years later in an article at Politico. Many on the list were either part […]
I give up. It was perfectly obvious what was happening at Fukushima on Saturday afternoon, when I posted bullet points at Skippy: there was going to be a major cleanup cost and the live reactors were not salvageable, but nothing fatal to many was loose in the atmosphere yet. Which is why I followed up […]
In a perfect world, you use distilled HOH to cool and control a nuclear reactor. In a flawed world, you use potable HOH and hope nothing damages the reactor in the longer term. In an emergency, especially one where potable HOH is going to be in short supply and you are near the coast, you […]
AB, late Thursday: If you want to stop a dictator from killing his people, freeze any of his personal assets that are held out of the country. In cases where the dictator is likely to fall, it sends a clear signal to other countries. (In cases where the dictator is likely to succeed, the worst […]
Peter Dorman at Econospeak, who is smarter and nicer than I am,* boils down the question: [D]o you believe that managers normally make the right decisions over how to run organizations? If you believe that premise, please explain: Why all those great managers of the late 1940s through the mid-1970s ran defined benefit contribution plans, […]
Both Gary and Rebecca cited Marc Lynch recommending “intervening” in Libya: The appropriate comparison is Bosnia or Kosovo, or even Rwanda where a massacre is unfolding on live television and the world is challenged to act. It is time for the United States, NATO, the United Nations and the Arab League to act forcefully to […]
Just in case anyone didn’t see this, or overlooked it the first time, at Maxine Udall, Girl Economist: A memorial service and celebration of her life will be held for Alison at 1:00 pm on March 5, 2011 at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 145 West Rose Tree Road, Media PA, 19063. We invite you all […]
Mark Thoma begins with a hilarious typo, but eventually gets to the Quote of the Decade (if not century) from Alan Blinder: If we economists stubbornly insist on chanting ‘free trade is good for you’ to people who know that it is not, we will quickly become irrelevant to the public debate. As Rusty can […]
Ex-food and energy, inflation is at 0.9% for the past twelvemonth. Even if you include those in the longer measure, annual inflation has been 1.7%. (Recall that we paid an average of more than $3.00/gallon for most of the Spring of 2010, for instance.) There is a simple reason “everyone” expected higher numbers: they were […]
The quality of the posts at Disruptive Women in Health Care(r) varies widely, but their special issues bring out the best and leave most of the chaff behind. Their latest eBook is Innovation Nation: Recognizing the Benefits of Innovation in Health Care. The PDF (direct link here) collects a series of posts from December, and […]