Sunbeams from Cucumbers

Sunbeams from Cucumbers
By George Will
WASHINGTON — Gulliver’s travels took him to the Academy of Lagado, where “professors contrive new rules and methods” for everything: “One man shall do the work of ten; a palace may be built in a week, of materials so durable as to last forever without repairing. All the fruits [...]

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The Chicago Way, on Tape
This wiretap was golden.

The list of crooked politicians is long, and the list of stupid politicians even longer. But if the criminal allegations made yesterday against Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich are proven in court, rarely will a politician have combined the two qualities with such efflorescence.

AP
Rod Blagojevich.

The second-term Democrat knew [...]

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DECEMBER 9, 2008

Free lunches always leave a bad taste
by Tim Harford

It may seem easy to give things away, but it is not. The more attractive the gift, the more damage people will do to themselves, and each other, trying to get hold of it.
If that idea seems counterintuitive, it is nevertheless true, as the managers of Ikea, [...]

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The price of oil
Down it goes
The price of oil has fallen below $50 a barrel. Why that may not be entirely welcome news

A BARREL of oil could be bought for $47.36 in after-hours trading at the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday December 1st. The price of oil is now at its lowest level in [...]

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Deepak Blames America
The media look within to explain the sick delusions of the Mumbai killers.
DOROTHY RABINOWITZ

If the Mumbai terror assault seemed exceptional, and shocking in its targets, it was clear from the Thanksgiving Day reports that we weren’t going to be deprived of the familiar, either. Namely, ruminations, hints, charges of American culpability that regularly [...]

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Thanksgiving, Socialism, and the Free Market

On both continents, however, positive attitudes toward trade are unlikely to increase in economically harder times. “The last thing struggling workers and producers want is more intense world competition,” says Joe Guinan, a trade economist at the German Marshall Fund. Yet Brown and Merkel, along with Brazil’s Luiz [...]

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Menem charged with arms-smuggling

Mr Menem insists the arms shipments were legal

The former President of Argentina, Carlos Menem, has been formally charged with involvement in arms-trafficking.
Prosecutors said Mr Menem had illegally sold weapons to Croatia and Ecuador in the 1990s, when they were involved in conflicts. He denies the charges.
Mr Menem, who has [...]

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America’s economy
Adding to the stimulus
More unconventional measures to stimulate America’s economy

THE Federal Reserve’s interest-rate target is near zero. The recession is deepening. No wonder that speculation is mounting about when America’s economic policymakers will start using truly unconventional measures to stimulate the economy.
The answer is that they already have. Since early September, without any formal [...]

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NOVEMBER 26, 2008

Buffett Stock Picks Beat Financials Index as He Dodged Subprime

Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) — Billionaire Warren Buffett’s decision to increase his stake in financial companies led by Wells Fargo & Co. and U.S. Bancorp and avoid subprime lenders is paying off for Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Berkshire’s bank-related investments rose 36 percent in the third quarter, while [...]

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A Permanent Bailout
Fifty years of EU farm aid ought to make us fear too much state intervention.
JACK THURSTON |
From today’s Wall Street Journal Europe

The global financial crisis is raising profound questions about the role of the state in economic affairs. For some, the nationalization of the banking titans and a more activist industrial policy [...]

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