Stable Genius Liberal

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The lowest paid workers get the least sleep. ilovecharts: Sleep Is For The Rich

Goldman Sachs reveals ties to Libya fund

Goldman Sachs has admitted in court documents to having used small gifts, occasional travel and an internship to cement its ties with Libya’s sovereign wealth fund under Moamer Kadhafi.

The Strange History of ‘Mad Honey’

The dark, reddish, “mad honey,” known as deli bal in Turkey, contains an ingredient from rhododendron nectar called grayanotoxin — a natural neurotoxin that, even in small quantities, brings on light-headedness and sometimes, hallucinations. In the 1700s, the Black Sea region traded this potent produce with Europe, where the honey was infused with drinks to give boozers a greater high than alcohol could deliver.

Kerry Claims U.S. Has Found a Moderate Syrian Rebel

Kerry said that the government’s successful identification of a moderate Syrian rebel was a major victory that should silence critics of the U.S.’s strategy in Iraq and Syria.

Andy Borowitz doing a great job pointing out how mock-worthy the moderate rebel strategy is.

Red-State Cities Find Euphemisms To Prepare for Global Warming

The pattern illustrates a growing disconnect between the debate still raging in politics and the reality on the ground. In many city planning departments, it has become like Voldemort, the arch-villain of the Harry Potter stories: It’s the issue that cannot be named.

The cognitive dissonance can only hold so long. At some point the denial side will have to admit they are wrong.

The Biggest Robbers In America Are Employers

The amount of money employers had to pay because they were found guilty of wage theft is nearly three times greater than all the money stolen in robberies, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

That $50 billion figure dwarfs the $14 billion taken from victims of robberies, burglaries, larcenies, and car thefts in 2012. That’s less than a third of the cost of wage theft, according to EPI’s estimations.

The NLRB needs to be reformed for the post labour union era. It should be the advocate for those who are robbed by their employers and it isn’t.

The Worst Governments in America Are Local

Uber has brought taxicab regulations, unlike other manifestations of Big Small Government, onto the national stage. It has scrambled partisan lines. Republicans have attempted to turn Uber into a symbol of free-market economics that can appeal to young and urban voters. Uber hired David Plouffe, the Obama-campaign whiz, to run its political operations. Plouffe’s hire provoked a wave of recriminations from the left wing of his party—here was another D.C. sellout working for the Man. But Plouffe’s support for Uber could also be understood as a natural extension of Obama-style moderate liberalism. At the federal level, where government power is checked by a hostile Republican Party, liberalism means advocating for subsidized medical care, or funding for science and infrastructure. At the local level, moderate liberalism may in fact be at odds with regulation, and advocates of “more government” are sometimes defending an organized racket.

intra-Democratic politics is not optimized to root out most government failure. Democratic voters tend to apply an ideology shaped by high-profile national struggles to their local voting habits; they may, for instance, associate arguments against regulation with the sorts of spurious claims made by polluters, Wall Street, or other robber barons, even if Uber’s argument against intrusive regulations has vastly more merit than the coal industry’s.

Worth a read. While it starts with a discussion of Ferguson, it gets what the liberal position on local regulations should be. Restricted to concerns about public safety, equal access and accountability to the public. The fact is that most of the worst regulations are at the local level. Most of the crony capitalism happens on the local level. It’s not the EPA and OSHA, it’s local intrusive regulations that are a problem.

When The Economist blamed Irish peasants for starving to death

its extraordinary blindness to how real life economic power relations work is reminiscent of the magazine’s beginnings in the 19th century, when it fulminated at the very idea that the British government should do anything about the Irish famine that was happening on its doorstep. After all, it was the peasants’ own fault that they were starving.

Laissez faire is often used as an excuse to blame victim.

Obama Outperforms Reagan on Jobs, Growth and Investing

Regression toward the mean is the likely explantation. The slowness of the recovery may be due to lack of targeted stimulus but everything else looks like normal growth.

Why is “libertarian” Uber sponsoring San Francisco’s giant police militarization conference?

Given Peter Thiel’s involvement with defense and domestic policing contractor Palantir and now Uber’s support of police militarization, we’re getting a clearer picture of where Valley libertarians stand on the issue. The government is bad… and police militarization is a threat to our liberty. Buuuuuuut, the warrior cop’s money is as good as anyone’s. Business is business.

Pretty much.