Barry Ritholtz catches AEI purging mention of deregulation from Peter Wallison’s bio. Wallison is co-director of AEI’s financial deregulation project; but he’s also one of the Gang of Four demanding that the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission not so much as mention deregulation in its report. From Orwell and the Financial Crisis – NYTimes.com We have… Continue reading Orwell and the Financial Crisis
Year: 2010
Tyler Cowen on The Inequality That Matters
Does growing wealth and income inequality in the United States presage the downfall of the American republic? Will we evolve into a new Gilded Age plutocracy, irrevocably split between the competing interests of rich and poor? Or is growing inequality a mere bump in the road, a statistical blip along the path to greater wealth… Continue reading Tyler Cowen on The Inequality That Matters
The SPECTRE of Inequality
there’s a scene early in the movie when the minions of SPECTRE, the evil conspiracy, are shown reporting on their profits from dastardly activities. And the numbers are … ludicrously small. I know that’s a running gag in Austin Powers, But it’s true, it’s true! Even the big one — demanding a ransom for two… Continue reading The SPECTRE of Inequality
Ken Cuccinelli, How to get ahead as a Republican in 2010
Ken Cuccinelli has called homosexuality “intrinsically wrong,” sought to alter the 14th Amendment in order to strip the children of undocumented immigrants of their citizenship, questioned the science of climate change, and dabbled in birtherism. He is, in other words, a near-perfect embodiment of the passions that animate the base of the Republican Party in… Continue reading Ken Cuccinelli, How to get ahead as a Republican in 2010
Post-Meltdown, Banks Still Rule Derivatives Trade
In theory, this group exists to safeguard the integrity of the multitrillion-dollar market. In practice, it also defends the dominance of the big banks. The banks in this group, which is affiliated with a new derivatives clearinghouse, have fought to block other banks from entering the market, and they are also trying to thwart efforts… Continue reading Post-Meltdown, Banks Still Rule Derivatives Trade
On Nixon Tapes, Disparaging Remarks About Ethnic Groups
Richard M. Nixon made disparaging remarks about Jews, blacks, Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans in a series of extended conversations with top aides and his personal secretary, recorded in the Oval Office 16 months before he resigned as president. From On Nixon Tapes, Disparaging Remarks About Ethnic Groups – NYTimes.com That’s our Nixon.
Hive-minds and Kleptocrats
Stross is a spectacularly good contemporary science-fiction author, brimming with ideas, who also has a stimulating blog, where his latest entry asks why things are so messed up. His proposed answer is that we’ve been invaded by alien organisms — namely, corporations: Corporations do not share our priorities. They are hive organisms constructed out of… Continue reading Hive-minds and Kleptocrats
Tea’d Off
I didn’t like Bill Clinton: thought he had sold access to the Lincoln Bedroom and lied under oath about sexual harassment and possibly even bombed Sudan on a “wag the dog” basis. But when I sometimes agreed to go on the radio stations of the paranoid right, it was only to be told that this… Continue reading Tea’d Off
How starving the beast makes us fat
tax cuts that are not matched by spending cuts actually result in increased government spending – for the citizenry as a whole, the pain of payment for products received has been eliminated. When we receive government services without paying their full cost, we consume more such services. If every spending initiative had to be matched… Continue reading How starving the beast makes us fat
How starving the beast makes us fat
tax cuts that are not matched by spending cuts actually result in increased government spending – for the citizenry as a whole, the pain of payment for products received has been eliminated. When we receive government services without paying their full cost, we consume more such services. If every spending initiative had to be matched… Continue reading How starving the beast makes us fat