To borrow the title of Charles Sykes’s latest book, we are increasingly living in a nation of moochers.
A new report from the Medicare Trustees acknowledges the disastrous problems that lie ahead for Medicare. The Obama administration released its own report on the health entitlement, which John Goodman aptly characterizes as “Bernie Madoff Accounting for Medicare.”
John Cochrane on “How to lie with statistics.” The bottom line is that figuring out who pays how much in taxes is really, really hard. We should be skeptical whenever we hear pronouncements about how much this or that group is paying.
Here’s another insightful post from Cochrane, this one dismantling a bunch of myths about speculators and the price of gas.
A few unnecessary concessions (“No one denies that appropriate federal regulation can encourage innovation and healthier corporate behavior“), but an otherwise good piece detailing the destructive regulation of the financial industry.
To the extent inequality is a problem in America, it’s because some significant part of that inequality is created by government. “The relentless expansion of credit by the Fed creates artificial disparities based on political privilege and economic power.”
A profoundly important principle from George Will: “The Constitution is a document, one understood—as America’s greatest jurist, John Marshall, said—‘chiefly from its words.’ And those words are to be construed in the bright light cast by the Declaration.”
“We know who the active [climate] denialists are—not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies. Let’s start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let’s make them pay. Let’s let their houses burn. Let’s swap their safe land for submerged islands. Let’s force them to bear the cost of rising food prices.” Well, I guess that’s better than the wishing death on all of humanity, which is a recurring theme among the greens.
Not sure if this is interesting at all to you, but I thought I’d provide some news:
There is a news website that millions of people use (mostly younger people, I believe) called Reddit.com (I think ARI actually has an account). On May 1st at 4:45 PM Eastern Time, Paul Krugman is going to be doing something called an “AMA” thread. “AMA” stands for “Ask me Anything.” What this means is that he’s going to be posting a thread where users can go to ask him anything, and he will answer the questions posted (he gets to choose which to answer, however).
Anyway, I thought I’d bring it to your attention in case you’re interested in asking him some tough questions.
I believe it’s going to be posted in this “subreddit” - http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/ (Reddit is a series of subreddits that you can subscribe to depending on your interests). To post anything, you have to create an account.
2 Comments to “Brain Food”
The EPA’s crucifixion comment was probably too late to make it into this wrap-up.
Not sure if this is interesting at all to you, but I thought I’d provide some news:
There is a news website that millions of people use (mostly younger people, I believe) called Reddit.com (I think ARI actually has an account). On May 1st at 4:45 PM Eastern Time, Paul Krugman is going to be doing something called an “AMA” thread. “AMA” stands for “Ask me Anything.” What this means is that he’s going to be posting a thread where users can go to ask him anything, and he will answer the questions posted (he gets to choose which to answer, however).
Anyway, I thought I’d bring it to your attention in case you’re interested in asking him some tough questions.
I believe it’s going to be posted in this “subreddit” - http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/ (Reddit is a series of subreddits that you can subscribe to depending on your interests). To post anything, you have to create an account.