Krugman and Mankiw on the renewed relevance of Keynesean economics

Greg Mankiw: What Would Keynes Have Done
Paul Krugman: The Keynesian Moment

the life: Iran: A Nation of Bloggers

the life: Iran: A Nation of Bloggers

This is a cool short film about the modernist new generation in Iran. Gives great hope for the new generation that will be springing as the old fanatical fuddy-duddies start to lose their grip on things.


Iran: A nation of bloggers from Mr.Aaron on Vimeo.

Awesome YouTube channel about everything . . .

So I'm home for the holiday weekend and I've been watching Khan Academy, a YouTube channel with good, accessible information about a large variety of topics. I've been watching the series on the credit crisis and the bailout. I highly recommend it.

This is outrageous . . .

The Economist: Troubled Securities in Asia

Pension savings in developing countries destroyed and wasted by American mortgage salesmen (yes, I hate salesmen . . .), speculators, and consumers who are defaulting on their debt. USA! USA! USA!

Governor Huntsman's a good guy . . .

Politico: Utah Governor Critical of GOP

The Wrong Side of History

This article pretty much sums up the gay marriage issue as it now stands. I don't think I entirely agree with the author's conclusions (though I'm prone to) he analyzes the issue much more deeply than most. Bolding and comments in [ ] are mine.

Rod Dreher: Why Prop 8 victory was Pyrrhic for conservatives

Despite their unexpected victory in California's Prop 8 battle, conservatives have all but lost the war to stop gay marriage. Yes, every time voters have been consulted about same-sex marriage, they've chosen to stick with tradition. But defenders of traditional marriage are not likely to prevail. Consider: • Prop 8 won because of a huge pro-Obama turnout among blacks and Latinos, who are conservative on gay marriage. But the issue doesn't matter enough to them to vote Republican in general elections. Democratic elites back gay marriage, and are likely to appoint judges who do too.

•Opposition to gay marriage was strong in 2004, but it has dramatically receded since then, polls show. This year, nonpartisan Pew Center found that a slight majority (52 percent) of voters oppose gay marriage, but the steady trend lines do not favor the antis.

•Young adults are far less opposed to gay marriage than older Americans. As the physicist Max Planck once said, "An idea does not take hold because people see the light. It wins because everyone opposed to it eventually dies."

These young people might change their minds as they age. But don't count on it. They have been raised in a culture that has in the past half-century thoroughly deconstructed the traditional meaning of marriage.

The concept of marriage has largely been severed from established norms in the popular understanding and is now seen as a contract formalizing the love a couple (for now) has for each other. Today, marriage has no intrinsic meaning that people are meant to serve; rather, it can be shaped to support people's desires.

This is the logical next phase in the development of modernity, whose 500-year project has been the gradual emancipation of the individual will. [This is what people mean when they lament the current trends of "rights without responsibility"] When gay marriage proponents argue that conservatives are on the wrong side of history, they're right.

Moreover, the prejudice – both in the bad, bigoted sense, and the good, Burkean sense – that protected traditional marriage is evaporating. Conservatives will lose this war because they have lost the young. And they have lost the young because they have lost the culture.

They are going to lose more than that when and if gay marriage becomes constitutionalized. They are going to lose some of their religious liberty.

No, pastors won't be jailed for anti-gay sermons. Nor are clergy likely to be forced to marry same-sex couples. But because marriage carries with it a vast array of legal rights and obligations, a live-and-let-live settlement is hard to imagine.

If courts place homosexuality on par with race in civil rights jurisprudence, a host of penalties against traditionalist religious organizations – including the loss of tax-exempt status – will kick in. Georgetown's Chai Feldblum, a gay rights activist and legal scholar, points to irreconcilable differences between gay rights and religious freedom.

Though Prof. Feldblum believes justice is on the gay rights side, at least she admits how high the stakes are for the faithful. Most gay marriage proponents deny or elide this, and the media aren't especially interested in examining the competing rights claims of religious believers.

What's more, as gay marriage backer and UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh has observed, one goal of the gay rights movement is "delegitimizing and legally punishing private behavior that discriminates against or condemns homosexuals." Though anti-Prop 8 campaigners said that no one would ever try to yank a church's tax exemption, days after losing the vote, gay protesters at a Mormon temple demanded exactly that. And a beloved Mormon theatrical director was forced out of his Sacramento job because he gave money to the Prop 8 campaign.

It won't stop there.

Should conservatives surrender? No, but it's important to deal with the world as it is. Marc D. Stern, general counsel of the American Jewish Congress, warns of a substantial impact on traditionalist churches, synagogues and mosques if gay marriage is constitutionalized under current conditions.

"If there is to be space for opponents of same-sex marriage, it will have to be created at the same time as same-sex marriage is recognized, and, probably, as part of a legislative package," he counsels.

Well, California gays had marriage in all but name, but still successfully petitioned the state Supreme Court over the word "marriage." Still, if religious liberty can be protected while statutorily granting same-sex marriage, that's a deal prudent conservatives and fair-minded gay activists should take.

Otherwise, get ready for a culture-war cataclysm.

Another good post by the same author here

Ok . . . maybe don't let GM die

This article in the New Republic look at least initially to be convincing (it has managed to quiet MY "burn baby burn" tendencies at least). Of course, I don't really know much of anything about the subject, like what exactly is being proposed to do to help which companies, how much it would cost if just one of them failed, how they could significantly downsize, what it would cost to cover unemployed workers, etc. Basically, there's no reason anyone should take my opinion seriously. Anyway, here's the link.

Hat Tip: Paul Krugman

Mark Thoma: Help GM die peacefully

Economist's View: "The Case for Forward-Looking Protectionism"

Brooks: Let GM die

NY Times: Bailout to Nowhere

McArdle: Let GM die

Megan McArdle: Keep Bailing

What should not be done to "help" the economic situation

Economist's View: Fed Watch: Misguided Policies
Portfolio.com: Reasons to Bail Out GM

My summary/oversimplification (ie still read the articles):
Don't artificially support the housing market, consumer credit; build infrastructure. Bail out GM only if its current management is removed (preferable violently . . . jk), and its stockholders/bondholders don't make anything off the deal.

Almost unbelievable

no comment

No green New Deal

The Economist: Green, Easy, and Wrong

Good article that says that the market, encouraged by constructive tax policy, is best able to solve the climate change problem. I agree. The fastest way that new, green technologies can be developed is to make the old, dirty technology more immediately costly on its users.

When are we going to use this in our jobs?

The Onion: Majority of Americans Never Use Physical Education After High School

Krugman on the economic crisis

What will happen to fake news when the Bush administration leaves?

Interesting links thereabout:

The Daily Dish: The Daily Show, Post-Bush

The Onion: Economists Warn Anti-Bush Merchandise Market Close to Collapse

Al Gore on a sensible energy/environmental policy

Very sensible and realistic suggestions on a national energy policy. Al Gore is a lot smarter than I have given him credit for I think (even though I thought An Inconvenient Truth was a bit over the edge . . . but then what do I know).

NY Times: The Climate for Change

Low Oil Prices = Bad for oil independence

Are alternative fuels reliving the 1980s?

America's great . . . except for the South

Amazing (and telling) graphics from the New York Times (Hat Tip: Paul Krugman)

And

Update: Snarky comment from Matt Yglesias:

You can see why John McCain’s principled stand against higher taxes on the wealthy would have a special resonance in this region. Liberals who thought race had something to do with those appeals should be ashamed of themselves.

Did Obama indirectly secure a victory for Proposition 8

According to exit polls, African Americans in California voted 70% in favor of Proposition 8.

More on this and related Prop 8 issues:
Megan McArdle: The people have spoken
Andrew Sullivan: Oh, No, You Don't
Obsidian Wings: Prop 8 and the Black Vote
Coates: Work to do
LA Times: Gay-rights advocates to challenge Proposition 8 in court