Archive for February, 2011

February 24th, 2011

If you read one article this morning on income volatility and the design of health insurance exchanges, this is the one.

February 23rd, 2011

I knew that Berkeley is a nuclear free zone but I have just learned that it is “goat friendly”.   I live in Berkeley a few weeks each year and I often hear chickens clucking in some backyards.  To a guy from NYC that is funky stuff.   “Dairy goats are becoming the next frontier for some [...]

February 22nd, 2011

Flat or round? Who is to know?

February 21st, 2011

I didn’t know that Rupert Murdoch also bought The Financial Times as well as The Times….

February 21st, 2011

Here is a case study of old crumbling dams.  If they break down, then the flooding will start.   A similar issue arises for our rundown highways and bridges.  This friday I will be at Brookings for a conference on state and local investment choices.   My paper with David Levinson focuses on how to encourage states to [...]

February 21st, 2011

The Irish have been badly served by the church they embraced as a comfort in times of British oppression, and later as something close to national identity.  Not surprisingly, as the orphanage and child abuse scandals kept drenching the hierarchy in shame, the Irish are becoming Catholics in memory or in name only.  They will [...]

February 21st, 2011

What everyone needs to read on Presidents Day.

February 21st, 2011

The Wall Street Journal describes some of the blowback Governor Scott is getting for proposing to repeal Florida’s planned prescription drug monitoring system. His spokesperson argues that this isn’t a legitimate function of government, but it’s too late in our history for that argument to make sense. Government has been licensing physicians and pharmacists and [...]

February 21st, 2011

I don’t have any special expertise about international diplomacy, the culture and history of the Maghreb, or revolutions in general, but something has to be said about what’s happening in Libya. News is scarce but it now seems reasonably certain that the government has unleashed widespread death by air attack, and by invited foreign forces [...]

February 20th, 2011

What functions of the Federal government might reasonably be deemed “non-essential”? The design goal is to make a list that will deter the Teahadis from playing chicken.