by Rebecca The G7 G20 Leader’s statement, number 20., regarding the IMF’s mission and governance (bold font by yours truly): The IMF should continue to strengthen its capacity to help its members cope with financial volatility, reducing the economic disruption from sudden swings in capital flows and the perceived need for excessive reserve accumulation. As […]

by divorced one like Bush So I check my mail today, 10/17 (been attending continuing ed this weekend) and find that as a member of the National Association of the Self-Employed (150K strong) I will now receive a news letter of sorts from a John Mauldin by receiving his latest: Muddle Through, R.I.P? Muddle Through […]

Robert Waldmann Not the intertubes, 18 mile long tubes held up by helium baloons releasing S02 into the stratosphere. Daniel Davies writes if you find yourself writing, in all seriousness, as a practical proposal, the phrase “pumping large quantities of sulphur dioxide into the Earth’s stratosphere through an 18-mile-long hose, held up by helium balloons”, […]

The tax code seems to foster one boondoggle after another. The ones getting my attention this week are the alternative fuel tax credits enacted in the 2005 highway bill. This was intended as a credit to encourage the development of alternative fuels for vehicles to cut our reliance on global warming-causing fossil fuels. See Natural […]

rdan Stereotypes and the brain suggests that older folk (over 60-88) are more susceptible to stereotypical thinking than younger people (age 18-25). A decade ago, a research team led by William von Hippel of the University of Queensland challenged that assumption. The psychologists proposed that older people may exhibit greater prejudice because they have difficulty […]

Robert Waldmann I think that something has changed at www.washingtonpost.com, because I am infuriated by many headlines and abstracts of articles. I don’t know if the same headlines appear in the dead trees version. Today we get Record-High U.S. Deficit May Dash Obama Goals Budget gap of $1.4T, while an improvement over worst projections, means […]

by Gavin Kennedy (cross posted from Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy) Elinor Ostrom – An End to Homo Economicus? Mario Rizzo writes (13 Oct) in Wall Street Pit HERE and Here: “Elinor Ostrom and the Relevance of Economics” “In fact, I would venture the guess than most economists had not heard of her before the prize […]

This cannot be true, can it? Louisiana Justice of the Peace Denies Marriage License to Interracial Couple: According to [Keith Bardwell, a justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish], he won’t support interracial marriages because he doesn’t feel that black or white society will accept the children of the couple once they are born. I […]