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Paul Romer has a big idea about how to encourage development in poor nations. The government of Honduras may be willing to test his core thesis. As I understand it, the host nation would pre-commit to change its “rules of the game”. It would set aside some of its land for a new city. The [...]
Archive for February, 2011
February 20th, 2011
Category: Politics and Leadership
I recently talked to an old Washington hand, a veteran of Capitol Hill and several White Houses, and asked what was the most intriguing development in the new Congress. He said it was the recent House vote against the F-35 jet engine. His reasoning was that for new House members to scuttle an appropriation that [...]
February 20th, 2011
Category: Constitutional politics, Watching Conservatives
If the Republicans force a shut-down of the Federal government, that won’t include shutting down the army, as the Constitution clearly provides it should.
February 19th, 2011
Category: Uncategorized
This menu forces you to think through some tough choices and tradeoffs. At least on paper, I balanced the state’s budget while protecting the UC, and not soaking business. Maybe I am a decider.
February 19th, 2011
Category: Uncategorized
The House has voted to cut off $2.3 million in U.S expenditure contributing to the production of the IPCC Reports on climate change mitigation and adaptation. The easy interpretation of this choice is that this is another “Al Gore snub” (see my earlier posts on political ideology and the climate change debate). What is the [...]
February 19th, 2011
Category: Uncategorized
Jackie Speier had a Joseph Welch moment yesterday when the hypocrisy, ignorance, and mendacity of the Republicans, showing off for their base on the mechanical bull of abortion posturing, hit some kind of new low. They had just finished parading a vote to defund Planned Parenthood, something that would assuredly cause more, not fewer, abortions, [...]
February 18th, 2011
Category: Climate change
The permafrost in the arctic prevents an enormous mass of peat from decaying. When it thaws, the carbon in the peat goes into the air as CO2 (if we’re lucky) or CH4 (if we’re not: methane is 25 times more warming than CO2). How about 1.5 trilllion tons, twice as much as is in the [...]
February 18th, 2011
In the last couple of weeks, there’s been a flurry of blogging interest in public support of the arts, whodathunkit. As I’m teaching a course about it this semester, I would be delighted to have some curriculum material to assign, but unfortunately the discussion has petered out as it usually does with an inadequate fact [...]
February 18th, 2011
Category: Uncategorized
Here is an answer provided by two economists. Consider two more factors. First, colleges do charge different people different prices. Here is some evidence from Yale. Suburban parents are subsidizing other students. Second, a fairly large share of university workers are unionized and are earning pretty good pay and benefits relative to market alternatives. Both of these examples [...]