Posted in Politics, tagged foreign policy, Politics, war on October 31, 2007 | 1 Comment »
John Bolton, writing in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, observes how cravenly the Bush administration has been kowtowing to North Korea in what are supposed to be six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear program but have turned into one-party concessions by the United States—even in the face of evidence that North Korea was helping Syria [...]
Posted in Politics, tagged envy, justice on October 30, 2007 | 2 Comments »
An interesting example from Jon Elster and John Roemer: Suppose that A is doing much better than B, in economic terms, and that B doesn’t even know of A’s existence, much less A’s level of welfare. Then, B learns about A, and learns that A is much better off. In one sense, B [...]
Posted in Cars on October 29, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Speaking of incongruous, imagine a seventeen-year-old Mazda 626 with 150,000 miles on it. Now imagine it newly painted Green Go, one of the fabled 1970 Dodge/Plymouth “High Impact” colors. It turns heads.
Posted in Politics, tagged Politics, statesmanship, war on October 29, 2007 | No Comments »
“Class, who can tell me what ‘incongruous’ means?”
A student quickly raises his hand. “Johnny?”
“That’s where our laws are made!”
Matt, in a comment to a recent post, points out that the point of Rep. Rangel’s tax reform proposal is probably not economic growth and may not even be greater equality. It may simply be [...]
Posted in Politics, tagged economics, justice, taxes on October 28, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Greg Mankiw points out that, according to the Tax Policy Foundation, the net effect of the Rangel tax reform would be to transfer cash from the top 1% of earners to the next 3%. (Hat tip: Instapundit.) Those earning over $500,000 would pay more; those making $75,000-500,000 would benefit, and especially those making [...]
Posted in Politics, tagged economics, taxes on October 27, 2007 | 1 Comment »
House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel has revealed the details of his plan for sweeping tax reform. As the Wall Street Journal observes, the plan has the virtue of making it clear what we might expect from a Democratic victory in the next election. It’s essentially a return to the tax policies [...]
Posted in Cats, tagged Cats on October 26, 2007 | No Comments »
On Fridays, I plan to publish a picture of one of my “animal companions,” to use the absurd politically correct phrase. (”Absurd,” because the relationship isn’t very reciprocal—they don’t feed me or clean my toilet!) This is Zadok, so named because one of my students found her a few years ago around the [...]
Posted in Religion, tagged church, poverty, social justice, stewardship on October 25, 2007 | No Comments »
It’s October, so it must be stewardship season at your local church. Every sermon is centered on the theme of giving. The choir or band rolls out its most impressive pieces. Musicians playing brass instruments appear to sway the emotions of the crowd. Pledge cards are collected. And the same [...]
Posted in Politics, tagged health insurance, poverty on October 25, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Over the past few weeks the Democrats have been pushing hard for an expansion of the S-CHIP medical insurance program to cover “children” up to age 25 and families making as much as four times the poverty level. Amazingly, however, the best they can do to argue for the expansion is to produce a [...]
