Some will rob you with a six-gun
And some with a fountain pen
This line from Woody Guthrie’s “Pretty Boy Floyd” has been used to illustrate the problem of white collar crime in a fascinating three-part mini-cycle of the “Thinking Allowed” podcast produced by BBC Radio. Laurie Taylor does a magnificent job of uncovering and discussing the technical, […]
Roger Pielke, Jr. writes:
Brad DeLong emailed me with a verbatim version of comments entered on my post about his attack-by-proxy on me by someone named “brad”. I had assumed that “brad” was not Professor Brad DeLong because “brad“‘s comments were so sophmoric and inane, but apparently they are one and the same person.
(…)
A comment shows up:
Roger, I find […]
Keith Hennessey, at Freakonomics:
Since much of economic policy is determined by law, rather than executive action, the biggest constraint is “How many votes can you get for that?”
Read the rest, it is quite entertaining.
In modern societies the bulk of political discussions about what set and structure of political and economic institutions would serve the society best revolves around the question of how much market regulation there should be.
I do not know why it did not hit me straight in the face somehow. It seems that Samuel P. Huntington, one of the most important modern political scientists, best known for his concept of the clash of civilizations, passed away on December 24th, 2008. If you missed his works, now you have a great […]
From “The Economist” (December 6th, 2008):
Germany’s Bayern LB received a €30 billion ($39 billion) (…)* rescue, €10 billion of which came in the form of a capital injection from (…)** Bavaria, part-owner of the Munich bank.
Before I tell you what I have skipped - if it was not obvious that Bavaria is a German state, how hard […]
After watching it for the second time I am now convinced that Stephen Gaghan’s “Syriana” (2005) is one of the best movies from the political fiction (?) genre ever made. Loosely based on CIA agent Robert Baer’s memoir (“See No Evil”) it tells parallel stories about merger of two oil companies, fierce fighting for rights […]
“Stability and Development Plan” (PDF in Polish) is an initiative of Polish government aimed at saving domestic economy from potential consequences of expected economic downturn in 2009 and 2010. It is a fascinating lecture:
Page 5 mentions rising excise taxes on alcohol and imported cars that is expected to bring additional PLN 1140 mln of tax revenue […]
Consider these facts:
Polish Energy Market Regulatory Authority (URE) claims that expected average price for energy in wholesale contracts signed for 2009 are at the level of PLN 220 (around USD 75) for 1 MWh.
URE is considering making it mandatory to trade energy through commodity exchanges like Polish Energy Exchange (POLPX or TGE). This regulation would be similar […]