The Economist has printed a pair of striking articles to accompany its striking cover predicting a drop in global housing prices. In typical dry British humour the leader, notes “Houses cannot be sold as quickly as shares, making a price crash less likely. It is true that house prices do not plummet like a […]
The fallout from the Canadian Supreme court decision ruling a patient’s right to seek care supercedes the right of the government to enforce a health-care monopoly continues to reverberate throughout the country. Canada is the only developed nation which dissallows private citizens from seeking private medical insurance. NWM cub reporter jc noted that […]
This is one of the sickest things I’ve read in a while.
As paradoxical and absurd as it sounds, it’s cheaper for a Hollywood studio to make a big-budget action movie than to make a shoestring art film like Sideways. Consider Paramount’s 2001 action flick Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. On paper, Tomb Raider’s budget was $94 […]
Last weeks cover article in the Economist, on the new envoronmentalism is particularly nice.
If environmental groups continue to reject pragmatic solutions and instead drift toward Utopian (or dystopian) visions of the future, they will lose the battle of ideas. And that would be a pity, for the world would benefit from having a thoughtful green […]
It was a surprise to me to learn today that Germany has no minimum wage law. In fact it’s not the only country.
In the European Union, 18 of the 25 member states, including Greece, Spain, Great Britain and France have a minimum wage. It is more often referred to in terms of a […]
The Economist has printed a pair of articles on the subject of flat tax, in theory and practice. This is a great companion piece to NWM’s last post on taxation where we launched off a Ted Rall catastrophe to examine the merits of a whole-scale adoption of a consumption tax.
Flat taxes are a very […]
I don’t have time to invest in a lot of analysis on Adscam. At least not as much as I’d like to. Joe Katzman has a great roundup of the issues at WoC. Though Joe is Canadian, his blog is decidedly international, and as such, he takes time to explain the details, […]
SeekerBlog has posted what will be the first in a series of posts on energy policy options, and it makes you anxious for the sequels. There is some smart blockquoting of reviews for Winning the Oil Game that detail just how much dependence on oil can be reduced by driving market innovation in transportation, […]
UPDATE: I don’t know how this happens but I actually just sat in one spot for 3 hours and hammered out nearly 3 thousand words on tax policy. I’d love feedback on this but I’m curious if anyone will have the temerity to read it.
Ted Rall has a unique reputation as an idiot amongst […]
Clay Risen has a worth-reading article at TNR on the subject of offshoring. This subject reached a fevered pitch last year, as an underperforming economy and election had people looking for scapegoats. Risen points out two major factors that have alleviated the “problem”.
One is that wages in India are skyrocketing (11.4% in 2004, […]
I thought it was pretty bizarre that Carly Fiorina was the leading candidate to head the World Bank. She’s no doubt a pretty capable person, but has no experience in development or banking, and its been less than a month since her unceremonial dismissal from HP. The economist made joke last week that […]
Fantastic article in the Economist showing how in many areas it is now indisputably cheaper to rent
The figures look even more striking in the San Francisco Bay Area, where it is possible to rent an $800,000 house for $2,000 a month. Making the same assumptions about rents and house prices, but also deducting tax relief […]
GQ has a great article detailing the growth of Google from a two-person startup to the current $50B valuation.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin are, in Silicon Valley terms, of a different generation than Andreessen, Yang, and Filo. Which is to say, they started their company four years later. By then the pair had determined they […]
Here’s an interesting story about a guy who at 35, with 2 small children, has managed to retire (hat tip: jc).
He’s exploiting the Canadian system, by relying heavily on the Child Tax Benefit, which surely wasn’t intended for able-bodied intelligent folk. Not to mention that he probably didn’t pay much tax in this country […]
Quick morning article on Starbucks expansion in Europe. There will be growing pains for sure, but it seems the Starbucks in France are already doing not bad.
Parisian Julien Grollemund is living proof that American coffee-to-go chain Starbucks (SBUX ) has a shot at taking hold, even in famously leisure-loving France. Once a week, the […]
Jonathan Chait published a just fantastic article at TNR, exposing the homonymity between Reagan’s laudable “tax reform” act of 1986, and Bush’s ill-defined and potentially harmful proposed “tax reform” of 2006.
ne of the great episodes in the lives of policy wonks everywhere–and, let’s face it, they don’t have many–occurred when Ronald Reagan signed the Tax […]
Interesting article that details history of scoial security, while also questioning whether there is a crisis in the system.
Peter Beinart’s fantastic article encouraging the Democrats to firmly engage in the struggle against islamofascism reminded me of an earlier piece in TNR, one that equally impressed me, and perhaps had an even larger effect on framing my personal politics.
In the March 16th cover story, Eliot Spitzer and Andrew G. Celli, Jr. challenge the traditional […]
Earlier last month the Economist published a small piece about the term liberal. I get the impression that there has since been a slight shift in editorial policy. While the newspaper has always refrained from inserting ‘classical’ in from of the term when describing its perspective, there seems to have been a concerted […]
Think that the American people have a good reason to be disappointed with the performance of George W. Bush? TNR has been reprinting previous presidential endorsements, and the one from 1980 is a great read. It’s almost hard to believe that this world existed. Bush gets his share of criticism for imposing […]