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

Terrorism, UK Today, France Yesterday

From a story in Daily Mail: Terror suspects including jihadis returning from fighting in Syria are to be offered taxpayer-funded homes, counselling and help finding jobs to stop them carrying out attacks in Britain. The top-secret Government strategy, codenamed Operation Constrain, could even allow fanatics to jump to the top of council house waiting lists. […]

New Report Highlights Flaws of North Carolina Mega-Incentives

by Kenneth Thomas New Report Highlights Flaws of North Carolina Mega-Incentives My new report for the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center, Special Deals, Special Problems–An Analysis of North Carolina’s Legislature-Approved Economic Development Incentives, has just been published. It covers a range of issues I’ve emphasized here before as well as some basic considerations reporters […]

GOP wants to repeal Dodd-Frank: instead they should listen to Nassim Taleb

by Linda Beale GOP wants to repeal Dodd-Frank: instead they should listen to Nassim Taleb Nassim Taleb, the author of the book on long-tail events, suggests in a Nov. 6, 2011 op-ed in the New York Times that “it is only a matter of time before private risktaking leads to another giant bailout like the […]

Guest post: Prometheus and Bundled Payments

As an extension of one of my posts, Global payment system, as the current buzz in healthcare reform, Michael Halasy points us to one of his choices for a plan. Guest post by Michael Halasy, Practicing Emergency Medicine PA, Health Policy Analyst, and Health Services Researcher Prometheus and Bundled Payments So, one of the more […]

La cupidité

If I’m reading this link from my usual news source correctly, Joseph Stiglitz’s new book Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy is being sold in France under the title Le triomphe de la cupidité (The Triumph of Greed). The sole B&N customer review so far is a confused jumble: If […]

Eagles Update

For those who missed it yesterday, Palace defeated the Wolves at Selhurst Park last night, 3-1 (only a goal in the 90th minute breaking the shutout) behind a hat trick from defenseman-moved-forward Danny Butterfield, who played a similar role in Saturday’s 2-0 win over Peterborough. Most interesting is this observation from Palace manager Neil Warnock: […]

Transfer Deadline Day and Poor Incentive Alignment

The big news of Transfer Deadline Day was that Nathaniel Clyne turned down a move from The Eagles to The Wolves.*  As The Guardian noted: [This] will please everyone at Crystal Palace who isn’t an administrator. Let’s look at the timeline and the reality. Palace was ninth in the Premier Championship [thanks to Tim in […]

Mark Cuban Makes the Key Point

Ken Houghton remembers that Warren Buffett famously groused that he pays a lower percentage of his income in taxes than his secretary. Or the person who will come up with an actual cure for a cancer. Mark Cuban takes this one step further, pointing out the obvious: if we want to promote investment, “we should […]

The TARP-May-Produce-a-Profit Meme can now be laid to rest

Duff and Phelps, which tends to be the rating agency you go to if S&P or Moody’s won’t rate you highly enough, provides a convenient evaluation table (p. 22 of this report) for the marvelous negotiating techniques and acquisition skills of the previous Administration. Since the current Administration is now threatening to continue with the […]

Election Story Interlude

In contrast to Mankiw’s attitude (see cactus’s post below*), my favorite election story of the year comes from Ms. Mochi_tsuki: So they started explaining to me what an absentee ballot is and how to fill one out. I pointed out that I’d spent 11 years of my adult life overseas and was very familiar with […]