EconTech

FT.com | Clive Crook’s blog | Was that liberal enough for you?
Does the Media Deserve Liberal Defenders?As I say, the problem is not media bias, it is media incompetence.
What is a deficit hawk to do?Of course the current budget doesn’t make the deficit hawk in me happy, but then, who wasn’t running a budget surplus [...]

-6.2% and 36%: Mark Thoma
Student Blogger – Explaining “Insider Knowledge” in False ConfessionsWhat I find surprising is that the writer doesn’t mention the harsh conditions under which many interrogations take place that stress the body and mind to the degree that these suggestions become quite powerful.
History LessonKey quote: "we still hear McConnell, Boehner, & Co. [...]

Casey Mulligan writes:

“It’s Obama spreading panic” says Dick Morris
Read his version here. I complained about Obama’s false alarms during the stimulus bill debate, and during the election, showing how the data clearly reject his claims of catastrophe.
It is hard to believe that people are still making this claim. Things are already quite bad, [...]

Medicare: Primary Docs to get more money, Specialists less
Confusing Rainbow of MysteryLooks more like conjoined twins to me..
FT.com / Europe – Turkish politician taken off air for speech
Parent of gamer asks his son to honor the Geneva Conventions – Boing BoingThe article itself is uninteresting and rather silly, Call of Duty has no room for [...]

My mother asked me this question last night. My rather uneducated guess is another 18 months before that happens. I’ve read things (probably Paul Krugman) saying 2-3 years, and that was a while ago. Don’t take that as a good prediction. I was forced to guess; so I did. Funny that Brad DeLong posts this [...]

So, I’ve complained in the past about the shortcomings of TinyMCE (though not mentioned by name). Little did I know that there is actually a feature-full version of this software ‘out there’ and that WordPress, in their infinite wisdom, decided to ship a crippled version with no obvious upgrade path. Luckily, some people have worked [...]

I noticed that my daily links were, once again, not working. Turns out, the plugin I modified to work with Google Reader had a line that made PHP 5, which I upgraded to now that Debian Lenny has been released, unhappy. I’m not 100% sure that this fix is compatible with PHP 4; so, if [...]

FT.com / Comment / Opinion – Flexibility gives way to rigidity’s virtues
Dani Rodrik’s weblog: What do Philippe Aghion and Dean Baker have in common?
Econ 210a: February 25, 2009: The Economics of Thugs with Spears Who Take Your Stuff
Inequality week?! I’ll probably be noting all of these.
İyigün Blog: Casey Needs a Mulligan
I won’t lie, sometimes I [...]

Robin Hanson inquires:

Libel, Slander, Blackmail
Bryan Caplan reminds us of a great old puzzle: why are libel, slander, and blackmail illegal? Bryan and I find it easier to understand two extreme positions than the actual intermediate mixture we have. The extremes:
Punish Falsehood – Authorities monitor what people say and punish them for saying things authorities believe [...]

As a fan of open access publishing, I was happy to see that the U of C had an article up discussing the impact of open source publishing on the dissemenation of articles. Then I read the article, and I was highly disappointed by the research. Not the results, mind you, but what was measured, [...]

So some hope, it would seem. Iran is pursuing nuclear programs. Despite the fact that we have no solid evidence that those programs are intending to involve the creation of weapons, people are getting hysterical because they’ve produced a lot of uranium. However, note that
They [UN officials] said Iran had accumulated more than one tonne [...]

Once upon the time the Internet enabled easy management of DVD queues. Netflix dominated the DVD-by-mail business, Blockbuster was cut off at the knees, and things were good. But Netflix is saying that they will offer a streaming only plan by 2010. I’m not sure how they will pull this off in terms of their [...]

There isn’t a whole lot of content here. But, if the Surgeons General have been right all these years (and they probably are), then alcohol consumption during pregnancy causes some serious birth defects. But for quite a few centuries, people drank quite a bit of alcohol due to a lack of potable water. Women certainly [...]

First this bit (I’m assured by a friend of mine in commercial real estate that these numbers refer to retail space, not just ‘real estate’):
#1: U.S. (20.2 square feet per person)
#2: Sweden (3.3)
#3: Netherlands (3.0)
#4 Austria and U.K. (2.5)
#5: France (2.3)
#6: Spain (2.1)
#7: Portugal (1.7)
#8: Germany (1.4)
#9: Italy (1.1)
The difference speaks for itself. That is [...]

I really don’t see a problem with a water bottle sales ban. Even Cowen approves, though Hamermesh does not. A Nalgene-like bottle is less than $10, lasts forever, and is easy to clean and carry around. Since this is on a college campus, just give incoming freshman a Nalgene on their first day, and make [...]