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

I am not a Libertarian Because I Believe in Freedom and Property Rights, And I’d Like to Minimize Government Coercion, Part 2

by Mike Kimel I am not a Libertarian Because I Believe in Freedom and Property Rights, And I’d Like to Minimize Government Coercion, Part 2 This is a follow-up to my previous post on libertarian philosophy, the aftermath of which was a surprising amount of, well, let’s just call it assorted vigorously uncomplementary communication. (Shows […]

‘unfortunate misunderstanding’…

A post of mine on May 17 titled The Difference Between Defending DOMA and Defending Neo-Nazis and the ACA discussed a post on the Blog of Legal Times that summarized part of a lengthy article published that day on Daily Report Online. These websites and their respective hard-copy publications, Legal Times, based in New Jersey, […]

EMPLOYMENT SITUATION

The employment report came in much as the ADP report had suggested it would. Payroll employment was little changed at 54,000. This is considerably weaker than over the last few months and is in line with other data that suggest the economy has weakened significantly. The household survey reported that employment rose by 105,000 while […]

Stock Market Adjustment

The stock market is adjusting to weaker 2011 economic and earnings growth. Business executives,analysts and economists have yet to reduce their 2011 estimates, So the important question is how much of the lowergrowth is already discounted. The consensus had been fordouble digit earnings gains in 2011. But now it appears thatearnings growth will be less […]

New wrinkles in the ACA litigation – Part II

by Beverly Mann New wrinkles in the ACA litigation – Part II Okay, well, now y’all know from reading Part I that under the Constitution’s Article III requirement that plaintiffs in lawsuits have some “particularized” (and ya know what that means, from reading Part I) injury or be in imminent danger of suffering one, and […]

I am not a Libertarian Because I Believe in Freedom and Property Rights, And I’d Like to Minimize Government Coercion

by Mike Kimel I am not a Libertarian Because I Believe in Freedom and Property Rights, And I’d Like to Minimize Government Coercion I wandered over the Libertarian Party and I found their Platform. I’m sure there are a few items here and there with which some libertarians disagree, but in general, it seems to […]

Get the Lead Out II

There is an absolutely serious hypothesis that the sharp drop in violent crime in the USA since the early 1990s is due to the EPA and, in particular, to the shift from leaded to unleaded gasoline roughly two decades earlier. Kevin Drum notes that James Q. Wilson ascribes about half of the total decline to […]