rdanChild Labor Through the Strange Filter of Orthodox Economics Peter Dorman at Econospeak notes that our official line concerning child labor in international trade has little research to back it up, and tends to always say ‘don’t mess with trade’: There is much to endorse in the innards of the argument made by Matthias Doepke […]
by reader ilsm The Tanker Saga, Continued, New York Times Oct 8 2009: Trying to recover from past mistakes, the Pentagon has initiated a third competition for a new Air Force midair refueling tanker. After two bungled attempts, defense officials, contractors and Congress really need to get it right this time. [snip] Another unresolved competition […]
The close: [W]hen the New York Times came and offered [Ross Douhat] a column, he did not turn it down saying “no, I clearly do not deserve this honour, others are far more qualified for it that me”. The NYT thinks Douhat’s important because people link to him. They neither realize—nor care—that you’re laughing at […]
Robert Waldmann AHIP The health insurance lobby just declared war on the Baucus plan. This is new, since they previously supported health care reform. It is not, however, surprising. AHIP made its condition clear, they would support health care reform provided that all were insured. Basically the individual mandate was the price for their support. […]
by cactus Time to End Regulatory Capture of the USDA by the Meat Packing Industry A couple years ago, I had a post looking at particularly egregious case of regulatory capture. I noted that the gubmint refused to allow a small meat packing company to test all of its beef for mad cow disease. The […]
No original content here, just two posts that make even more sense together: Mark Thoma proves he’s an economist (not just an econometrician) by reminding everyone of the Opportunity Cost of the Oughts from a long-term perspective*:((Rdan…Attribution of the quote is in error due to a format error at Mark’s…the original is from Joseph Stiglitz […]
by Bruce Webb John McCain and others have been all over TV arguing that the success of the Surge in Iraq proves that we should just go ahead and throw forty thousand more troops on top of the twenty thousand sent in March to Afghanistan. Well ignoring for the moment that where the surge increased […]
by Rebecca There is no shortage of speeches by US central bankers these days. The following is an excerpt from a NY Times article that highlights the debate among key Fed officials about the speed and method of stimulus withdrawal once the decision to exit has been made: Mr. Bernanke and other officials want to […]
About Angry Bear Angry Bear 2009: The Wall Street Journal, 24/7 Wall Street and Time CNN named Angry Bear among the top 25 independent economic blogs on the net. As quoted at CNN “… Angry Bear is the product of a half dozen Ph.D economists, an historian, and financial professionals. The writers provide individual perspectives […]
by guest poster Gavin Kennedy (Rdan-A reader comments on the Research Agenda post on Adam Smith. The comments could not handle the volume of text, so I took the liberty of putting up the comment and the response. Good work guys): The reader suggests Mr. Gavin consider the following quote and his explanation:Adam Smith in […]