Who Won in Tuesday’s Abortion Vote? We know who lost: women. But who won, politically? Republicans or Democrats? Barry, at Alas! a blog has a series of intriguing posts on the latest “partial-birth” abortion ban and abortion in general. (For your reading convenience, Barry also has the posts indexed here.) In this post, Barry makes […]

Insurance and Lemons Atrios is starting a series on insurance markets and common misperceptions about them. Part 1, here, discusses insurance in general and introduces two topics that are crucial to any discussion of insurance: moral hazard and adverse selection. Atrios’ Part 2 is forthcoming, but will address the specifics of health insurance; it should […]

Center for American Progress That’s the name for Podesta’s new liberal think tank, which basically opens today. I don’t particularly love the name, but I suppose it’s not too bad–after all, who can be against “American Progress.” More interestingly, they are supposed to announce their first nine fellows today, so assuming some of them are […]

Resource Allocation In a series of arrests spanning 21 states, the feds are apparently rounding up illegal aliens working for WalMart, or rather, aliens working for a subcontractor hired to clean WalMarts. The immigrants are reportedly mostly Eastern Europeans. Is it possible that a 21 state operation to nab 300 people in the country illegally […]

Some or All? Today, Clark announced his tax plans: Clark vowed to repeal or modify the Bush tax cuts for families making at least $200,000 annually, repeating a promise he made a few weeks ago, and the scheduled reductions for those families making less than $200,000 would be protected under his plan. Clark is taking […]

Baseball and Efficient Markets CBS Marketwatch reports on a recently circulated research paper by Ronald Kahn at Barclay’s Capital that makes a very good analogy between investing and baseball: The New York Yankees and Florida Marlins may match swings on the field, but given what they spent on player salaries to get to the World […]

Snow Learns His Lesson… Sort Of US Treasury Secretary John Snow, when asked today about future interest rates, gave the right answer this time. Contradicting evidence from earlier this week (described in my earlier post), Snow replied “I don’t really comment on interest rates. Interest rates are a matter for the Fed.” Well done. He […]

A Telling Slip of the Tongue? Something that Bush said during a press conference with the President of Indonesia today struck me as a bit odd. I just went and checked the transcript, and discovered what it was about Bush’s phrasing that seemed slightly unsavory to me: Bush: Americans hold a deep respect for the […]

Politicians Making Ethics Decisions Can someone explain to me why some politicians feel that it’s their place to make the decision in cases like this? TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Oct. 21 — Six days after the feeding tube of a brain-damaged woman was removed in a case that pitted her husband against her parents, Gov. Jeb Bush […]

Reproductive Freedom A “partial-birth” abortion ban, without exceptions for the health (there’s an exception for the “life” of the mother, but an amendment to add “health” failed to pass), passed 64-34. I put “partial-birth” in quotes because what was really banned was a specific dilation and evacuation procedure that is similar to one used in […]