AB, late Thursday: If you want to stop a dictator from killing his people, freeze any of his personal assets that are held out of the country. In cases where the dictator is likely to fall, it sends a clear signal to other countries. (In cases where the dictator is likely to succeed, the worst […]
Both Gary and Rebecca cited Marc Lynch recommending “intervening” in Libya: The appropriate comparison is Bosnia or Kosovo, or even Rwanda where a massacre is unfolding on live television and the world is challenged to act. It is time for the United States, NATO, the United Nations and the Arab League to act forcefully to […]
Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism offers wise words regarding trade policy agreements and capital flows, in addition to pointing us toward a letter signed by several hundreds of economists regarding capital controls and government.: This letter is at odds with a longstanding project of major financial firms: to allow them to move money across borders […]
Chinese Confusions by Paul Krugman These days, China seems to play the same role in much of our discourse that Japan did two decades ago. We look at our own follies — which are immense — and then look at the Chinese, and ascribe to them all the virtues of foresight and determination we lack. […]
Both parties promise ‘economic growth’ in this debate as the way out of our troubles for unemployment and federal deficits. Left out of the discussion currently is the way to actually accomplish this growth in a way that delivers more specifically to voters other than some vague notion of trickle down from a ‘global free […]
Dan here…Lifted with permission from an e-mail from Tim Worstall, an expert in rare earth issues and resources, in response to my sending him the NYT article suggesting China was using rare earth resources as both a trade issue (notice NYT suggestion the pass on processed product versus raw material export)) and political leverage with […]
(Joined in progress) Governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan Michigan – “No Worker Left Behind,” which provides retraining for those downsized auto workers and others. Escalation of high school curriculum so that graduating students must have taken college prep courses—has resulted in reduction in dropout rate because the community understands that this is a good thing […]
With thanks to Felix Salmon for arranging the invitation. There’s an episode of House where he has to get rid of one of the people for his new team. By the end of the episode, the sharpest person in the group has said everything that we would have expected to hear from House—and is therefore […]
by Dan Crawford Stormy asks in an e-mail: At one time, I thought America was supposed to lead the way in green technology, providing jobs for Americans…and sends this quote from the Washington Post. The last major GE factory making ordinary incandescent light bulbs in the United States is closing this month… …What made the […]
The real trade deficit collapsed in June — plunging from -$45,992 million to -$54,136 billion ( 2005 $). I have not done the calculation, but this will generate a significant downward revision of the second quarter real GDP report. Remember, BEA does not have this data when they do the first GDP report. The plunge […]