The petition is here. Including a comment is optional. I opted to write one: Matt the dog warden threatened her and her neighbor with arrest if they took the dog to the vet? And the violation of law charged would have been what, exactly? So there are three issues here: First, the dog’s owner did break […]
Lead story at CNN was this: Washington (CNN) — An internal Veterans Affairs audit released Monday said tens of thousands of newly returning veterans wait at least 90 days for medical care, while even more who signed up in the VA system over the past 10 years never got an immediate appointment they requested. I […]
‘Food desert’ is not a common idea on people’s minds, but we also tend to say “Let them eat cake” when it comes to obesity. Michael Pollan suggests: Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter of the store. It is not just what you eat but how you eat. “Always […]
No sooner do I comment on the difference between tax planning and tax avoidance than Richard Murphy points out that several multinational corporations are having their tax deals looked at for potential violations of the European Union’s state aid rules. As The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal report, there are three cases currently under […]
Religious ethics rarely enter into mainstream economic theory, but they are topics that [economics professor cum Eric Cantor slayer David] Brat, who describes himself in his writing as a Calvinist, has turned to repeatedly. In a 2011 article, “God and Advanced Mammon — Can Theological Types Handle Usury and Capitalism?” published in a journal of […]
Tyler Cowen has a post at the New York Times about how war can rejuvenate the economy in various ways. We need to be very careful not to jump on him and accuse him of being a war-monger. I remember when many people jumped on me for recommending a recession based on Christina Romer’s speech. […]
by David Zetland (re posted from Aguanomics) Who has the right to leaked water? SM sent this question a few months ago: My thesis is about conjunctive water use and the hydrologic externalities that arise from a change in water use (e.g., increased irrigation efficiency or canal lining). I am focusing in the canal seepage/lining […]
(Dan here) Ceres has published a recent report on growing corn for ethanol costs-relating to water use, where corn is grown, and why. The report includes the impact on global food prices. David Zetland at Aguanomics points us to a growing concern about the increasing use of natural gas (and fracking). Is natural gas the next […]
by Joseph Joyce The ECB’s Daunting Task Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank, and the members of the ECB’s Governing Council are receiving praise for the initiatives they announced last week to avoid deflation (see here and here). The immediate impact of the announcement was a rise in European stock prices. But the […]