OTB Radio – Tonight at 5:30 Eastern
The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live from 5:30-6:30 Eastern. Dave Schuler and I will talk about Sarah Palin's comeback tour and ensuing controversies and President Obama's Asia trip. Alex Knapp will join us to provide his legal expertise on the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial and Steve Verdon will stop by to discuss the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 18, 2009 18:23
Pfizer Abandons Property It Stole From Kelo
I missed this story last week, but apparently Pfizer is abandoning its New London headquarters, and the land that it used the power of government to steal from Kelo et al. now lays fallow. Susette Kelo's little, pink house in New London, Conn. -- like the houses of all her neighbors -- is now a pile of rubble, overgrown with weeds. ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 18, 2009 16:01
National Debt Hits $12 Trillion, Will Double By 2019
Barack Obama has been president for just under 10 months but he's added two trillion to the national debt and will double it by the end of the decade. CBS' Mark Knoller: This latest milestone in the ever-rising journey of the National Debt comes less than eight months after it hit $11 trillion for the first time. The latest high-point is ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 18, 2009 10:07
Brooke Magnanti is Belle de Jour
The weekend's most bizarre story is that British cancer specialist Dr. Brooke Magnanti has revealed that she is "Belle de Jour," the pseudonymous blogger who managed to get several bestselling books and a television movie out of having paid her way through graduate school as a high priced prostitute. Jon Ungoed-Thomas for The Times. Her identity has been one of ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 16, 2009 13:43
Kelo Follow Up
Well looks like the entire town of New London, Conn. is going to get screwed by Pfizer. “Look what they did,” Mr. Cristofaro said on Thursday. “They stole our home for economic development. It was all for Pfizer, and now they get up and walk away.” That sentiment has been echoing around New London since Monday, when Pfizer, the giant drug company, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 13, 2009 18:52
Health Reform & Standards for Equal Justice
The Urban Institute's Eugene Stuerle is not very happy with the health care expansion legislation that is likely to be passed into law. Stuerle argues that the legislation violates the standards of equal justice. Of course, families in this income bracket pay far more than $14,700 for health care. They get hit by uninsured expenses or covered expenses they have ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 13, 2009 14:11
Bear Stearns Jurors: I’d Invest With Them
Not only did the government lose its case against two top Bear Stearns managers but at least one juror came away wanting to invest with them. Prosecutors missed the mark so widely in the fraud trial of Bear Stearns Cos. hedge fund managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin that a juror said after their acquittal she would invest with them if ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 11, 2009 08:05
UPS vs. FedEx Whiteboard Video
Reason's Nick Gillespie has a bit of fun with the UPS-FedEx fight to make a larger argument about unions. What's particularly amusing about this is that, rather than seeking to get the favorable regulatory treatment that FedEx enjoys, UPS is fighting to put FedEx under the same onerous rules. I'm reminded of the old joke about the Russian who gets a wish ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 10, 2009 13:18
Making Jobs More Expensive
The recently passed health care “reform” noted by James below is going to have another impact some have noted, but many have not given much thought too. It will, in effect, make labor more expensive. When something becomes more expensive for firms then tend to use less of it. They will substitute away from it if possible, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 9, 2009 00:24
House Trades Freedom for Health Coverage, Senate’s Move
The House passed a trillion dollar bill that will force Americans to buy health insurance, force even small businesses to provide health coverage, and require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions. (The last, as I have previously argued, makes it something other than "insurance.") Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray for WaPo: Hours after President Obama exhorted Democratic lawmakers to "answer the call ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 8, 2009 09:38
Jobs Created or Saved…Again
It looks like the Obama Administration’s brilliant political jujutsu move of using “jobs saved or created” is making its way around some of the economics blogs again. First up is Brad DeLong’s attack on Allan Meltzer. Meltzer wrote the following, There is no greater recognition of the failure of the stimulus program to create jobs than the efforts to ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 3, 2009 19:03
Health Care: Better, Faster, Cheaper!
In a much discussed post, Ezra Klein produced a series of graphs showing that Americans pay more for office visits, scans and imaging, drugs, and other aspects of health care -- often, far more -- than is the case in Canada or Western Europe. There is a simple explanation for why American health care costs so much more than health care ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 3, 2009 15:43
American Opportunity Myths
Isabel Sawhill and Ron Haskins have written a piece for Brookings titled "Five Myths About Our Land of Opportunity." None of it's new to those who've paid much attention to these things in recent years. What's interesting, though, is the seeming contradiction in Myths 1 and 4. 1. Americans enjoy more economic opportunity than people in other countries. Actually, some other advanced ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 3, 2009 09:30
Political Control of Government Motors
Back when talks about bailing out General Motors started one potential issue was that GM would “encouraged” to make decisions based on political considerations vs. a sound business plan. Looks like there is evidence for such concerns with this story of how Montana’s Congressional Representative and two Senators are pushing to get a contract reinstated with a Montana palladium ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 2, 2009 15:01
Ford Posts 3Q09 Profit
Ford Motor Companies, the only major American automobile company to adequately prepare for a future where fewer cars are manufactured, and the only one not to receive signficant government handouts in the past year, posted a proft last quarter.Ford Motor Co (NYSE:F - News) posted a quarterly profit on Monday, defying Wall Street forecasts for a loss as it cut ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 2, 2009 13:50
