Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Foreign films, Western Cultural Influence, and Divorce in Japan.

by Tilman Tacke and Robert Waldmann Globalization has caused a decrease in cultural distinctiveness. We find indications of a link between the divorce rate in Japan after 1955 and the market share of foreign films. Foreign films in Japanese cinema, including Hollywood productions, may act as importer of Western values. The market share of foreign […]

Weakest Economic Recovery

From the Saturday NYT story by Floyd Norris. Just to preclude the comments, this is from the economic bottom, so it does not include the recession Bush inherited.

Thoughts on labor day: things to do

by reader drew Legislatively (re)impose a fair and balanced labor market: First, double the minimum wage to $13/hr over three years (a dollar every six months?) – and – legally guarantee inflation adjustments for incomes under $100,000. Doubling the minimum wage could potentially add an average 50% more pay to below 50 percentile earnings ($13/hr […]

Gustav is here

Storm Pulse is a way to track the various weather events. Update: P Jackson of Housing Wire is writing for CR with this Calculated Risk and commenting on oil and insurance matters. (rdan-CR link fixed)

Backwards Transfer is Back: Social Security’s Unfunded Liability

Awhile back we had a series of posts about the causality of Social Security’s ‘unfunded liability’ in response to a comment by Jim Glass over at Andrew Bigg’s. The first post was XXXVI: $17 Trillion Backwards Transfer. Andrew answered back with Responding to Angry Bear: Where does the $17 trillion deficit come from? to which […]

To the heart of the chant on tax cuts

Mark Thoma started a chain of posts on the efficacy of tax cuts that bears watching as research becomes published. Following the money apparently is more possible in this day and age. Richard Serlin (first here) followed up with two posts, the second here. Don Pedro of Economists4obama says in comments: I want to point […]

The Efficiency of the Private Sector

by cactus The Efficiency of the Private Sector Recently, the wife and I moved to a new state. When you do that, you need to get a new driver’s license, plus re-register your vehicles. The whole process, including taking the written (well, computerized) exam, from the moment we walked in until the moment we walked […]

Being on spin cycle and hopping off

Maybe this link has good enough real video information and transcripts on many issues…it does need filling in a bit for a national race. Any more credible collections put together? Update: Rdan just voted this post the best of Palin series on the internet.

Candidate reactions

hat tip to Movie Guy Here is part of what Presidential candidate Obama said on Friday about the Republican Vice Presidential candidate: Senator Obama called Governor Palin from his campaign bus on Friday afternoon (local time) and spoke with her for “several minutes,” campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs said.”He told her she would be a terrific […]