Lest we forget

parts 2, 3, 4, and 5

Delusions of grandeur

Bloggers are enjoying themselves ridiculing South Sudan’s plans to rebuild its city centers from scratch—in the shape of safari animals. As well they should! These are crazy schemes, fueled by oil revenues and delusions of grandeur. But just as delusional is the attack on “constructivism and the demeaning character of collectivism,” and the glorification of [...]

“This Fucking Job”

Economist of the day

The peak unemployment rate of 10.1% in October 2009 corresponded to a mean duration of unemployment of 27.2 weeks and a share of long-term unemployment of 36%. The duration of unemployment peaked (thus far) at 35.2 weeks in June 2010, when the share of long-term unemployment in the total reached a remarkable 46.2%. These numbers [...]

Food fights

Fights over food permeate every aspect of our society—whether it be the current egg scare, the nature of recipe books, or the role of gardening. Right now, we’re bombarded with celebrity-chef cooking shows and cookbooks (which are no more than ways of advertising and adding to the chefs’ growing food empires) but the recipe books [...]

Party like it’s 1934

The coverage of the mad Tea Party event has been all about the call for a return to religious values and the number and race of the partiers. Only Frank Rich investigates the sources of the funding and the history, and thus the goals, of the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party is financed by [...]

Have-much-mores and have-lesses

The growth of income inequality in the United States from the 1970s until the onset of the current crises is beyond doubt.* But there are many different ways of measuring and representing the change in inequality. Chuck Marr, of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, looks at the distribution of after-tax income in 1979 [...]

HAMPing their way to recovery

The Home Affordable Refinance Program has nothing to do with assisting struggling homeowners. It was designed and implemented to help banks “earn” their way back to financial health. That’s what Zach Carter concludes from all the available evidence. The initiative lowers monthly payments for borrowers, but fails to reduce their overall debt burden, often increasing [...]

Liberalism and academic freedom in Israel

Academic freedom is under assault in Israel. And it’s being funded by the United States. Neve Gordon describes the escalating attacks on academic freedom in Israel, associated with the defense of human rights and the divestment campaign, and characterizes it as the expression of a “protofascist logic.” Two right-wing organizations, the Institute for Zionist Studies [...]

Efficiency, welfare, and inequality

In neoclassical economics, efficiency is often taken to mean welfare. And neither efficiency nor welfare is affected by the equality or inequality of outcomes. In the continuation of his illuminating discussion of welfare economics, Uwe Reinhardt is right to point out that neoclassical economists pretend not to be making or invoking value judgments when they [...]