Protest of the day

On May 22, prisoners at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison [ht: db] began a hunger strike. The series started Dec. 9, 2010, with a sit-down strike by thousands of prisoners in Georgia, tired of being forced to work for free like slaves, followed by Lucasville prisoners’ hunger strike at Ohio State Penitentiary in January 2011 [...]

Is fairness the enemy of the possible?

Is fairness the enemy of the possible in Europe? James Surowiecki seems to think so, which is why he suggests that “voters and politicians on all sides need to stop asking themselves what’s fair and start asking themselves what’s possible.” In one sense, Surowiecki is right: the ultimatum game, when at least one of the [...]

Austerity 101

The obvious response to the current crisis in higher education is to demand more financing for public colleges and universities and to create more jobs for college graduates. However, the new austerians, such as Robert Samuelson, simply dismiss these possibilities and argue instead that fewer young people should go to college. The college-for-all crusade has [...]

All warfare is based on deception

If “all warfare is based on deception” (Sun Tzu), the biggest deception concerns the costs of warfare. That’s why the work done by the folks at costsofwar.org is so important. They have attempted to estimate the human, economics, and sociopolitical costs of the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Here are some of their [...]

Cartoon of the day

Special mention

“Inequality wasn’t the answer”

A friend suggested, in an email, that I may have been “on to something” when I presented my “Mind the Gap” paper at the Volcano symposium. The evidence is a recent column by Heather Stewart, who reports on last week’s OECD forum in Paris. For a long time, the growing gap between rich and poor [...]

Where has all the surplus gone?

Where has all the surplus gone? As in 2010, a good chunk of it has gone to pay Chief Executive Officers of major U.S. companies. According to a new Associated Press study, the head of a typical public company in United States made $9.6 million in 2011. This figure was up more than 6 percent [...]

Protest of the day

  [ht: er]

Cartoon of the day

Special mention

Economist of the day

  Radical economist Maria da Conceição Tavares (who, in the video above, addresses students of economics and describes the subject as political economy, as a social science for which history—not mathematics—is central) was just awarded the highest scientific prize granted by the Brazilian government [ht: cb and gh]. In a recent interview, Tavares explained that, [...]