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

Reality going to the Dogs

This one is for those concerned about how we spend our tax dollars. It is a robotics project funded by the pentagon performed by Boston Dynamics called the BigDog. I’m not going to comment because I can think of many positives as in the moon shot program and transitors and I can think of many […]

Angry Bear on the rise

Angry Bear has been steadily increasing its readership, but in the last three months especially has seen a significant rise in visits. For the first time ever we had over 100,000 visits in March, which is a milestone given that around 60,000 was common. (Real figures can be evaluated on the sitemeter. January saw 90,000, […]

Peltzman Effect

If you look at the data on traffic deaths it is obvious that we are doing something right in the US.As far back as the data goes traffic deaths have been falling at a -3.2% annual rate. But if your source of information was economics you would be hard pressed to know this. It has […]

21st century economics just starting

Mark Thoma carried a post on a piece The sting of poverty, by Drake Bennett, Boston Globe on a fresher look at the reasons poor people are ‘irrational’ in neo-liberal economic terms regarding diminishing returns of marginal utility. Many familiar names are in the comments. It is a great start to bringing economic theory out […]

I’m converting dollars. (In order to save the rustbelt)

With all the discussion about our plight money wise I thought it would be interesting to see just how distorted our view can become depending on what factor we choose as a comparison. Also, I find this site fun. So, just how do we compare today to the fondly remembered yesterday? I am very grateful […]

More unilateral executive

The NYTreports: The proposal is part of a sweeping blueprint to overhaul the nation’s hodgepodge of financial regulatory agencies, which many experts say failed to recognize rampant excesses in mortgage lending until after they set off what is now the worst financial calamity in decades. Which experts? If an agency is not looking, or actively […]

Climate control issues

Alternet, a leftist blog, carries this interview with Dr. Jansen, head of Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA’s premiere climate research center. So might that make it slightly left of center? DR. JAMES HANSEN: Well, my concern is general with both Republican and Democratic administrations. They both feel that they can control what scientists say […]

Call my people…

Dani Rodrik writes: How bad things get at Harvard An e-mail from the assistant to an incredibly distinguished Harvard colleague (names deleted to protect the innocent):X [very distinguished Harvard professor] asked me to see if he can get on your calendar to have a lunch with him and Y [another distinguished professor] in the near […]

WTO and Antigua follow up

Arstechnica had thoughts on WTO mediation and US indignation about IP rights. The second case concerns Antigua and Barbuda, a small Caribbean country home to all sorts of online vices, including gambling and DRM circumvention. Antigua took the US to the WTO years ago over charges that the US was unfairly criminalizing access to Antiguan […]