Yves here. As Hugh said via e-mail:
Read more...The report is actually two reports fundamentally at odds with each other.
It’s like taking a hammer to a tomato. One report says the tomato got smashed. The other report says the tomato got bigger. Which are you going to believe?
If a bad job market wasn’t damaging enough, the cost of paying off student loans does much more harm to the long-term prospects of young people than is commonly realized.
Read more...Once again, if you want to understand what has gone wrong with the funding of research, economists bear a lot of the blame.
Read more...Yves here. This post by Gaius not only reports on the latest rumors surrounding the Fukushima clean up (such as it is) but also the huge danger the site poses to Japan and the US if it is not stabilized.
Read more...A sceptical look at anti-carbon-scam enforcement activities in the UK.
Read more...Yves here. While readers may contend that Michael Olenick’s case is an outlier and anecdotes are not the same as data, the extreme secretiveness of the Obama Administration combined with deliberately misleading statistics leads one to give some weight to anecdote in the absence of better facts.
Read more...A last look at the lovely contact list of scammers’ friends, Carbon Neutral Investments Limited
Read more...Yves here. The headline is hardly news, at least if you’ve been paying attention, but this post does a great job of debunking arguments against Social Security, particularly ones designed to stoke generational warfare.
Read more...Yves here. This article is a portrait of official denial, which is then dutifully taken up and amplified by the media (well, not universally, but widely, as Ilargi’s post also demonstrates). It corroborates one of my pet theories: that we are at the end of an economic paradigm. The powers that be lack the will and imagination to do anything other than patch it up and put it back into operation. That simply assures more frequent breakdowns until the system is beyond repair.
Read more...I really enjoy speaking with Harry Shearer, both for his engaging manner and his thorough preparation. I also hope you’ll see fit to circulate this interview, since the more attention we can bring to this plan to legalize corporate pillage, the better.
Read more...Yves here. As much as the post below is a very useful recap of data in terms of the impact of QE, I need to hector “Unconventional Economist” for being pretty conventional. His headline question, whether intentionally or not, reinforces the notion that it was reasonable to think that QE, or super low rates generally (as in ZIRP) would lead to increase lending….
Read more...Yves here. I thought it would be useful to feature a post on geopolitics, since America’s declining standing in the world plays directly into domestic politics. The classic guns v. butter issue is a big part of the coming budget battle. One of the reasons that both parties would like to reach a deal in December is that another round of sequester cuts will otherwise kick in in January.
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