It makes no sense

Some people fret that China will reap the green jobs of the future, but no economically viable green-energy product exists. It makes no sense for the U.S. to try to dominate a money-losing industry, especially by guaranteeing profits to inefficient power plants for 30 years.

sheer nasty hypocrisy masquerading as journalism

The myth of renewable energy

zodiac signs as job criteria

It appears that zodiac signs – what most people would agree to be an arbitrary aspect of an applicant’s profile – have in fact become significant criteria for many companies.

In China, at least.

Megan Mcardle reviews Shiny Objects

Megan Mcardle reviews Shiny Objects

Here are some of the things that upset [James A. Roberts] and that "document our preoccupation with status consumption": Lucky Jeans, bling, Hummers, iPhones, 52-inch plasma televisions, purebred lapdogs, McMansions, expensive rims for your tires, couture, Gulfstream jets and Abercrombie & Fitch. This is a fairly accurate list of the aspirational consumption patterns of a class of folks that my Upper West Side neighbors used to refer to as "these people," usually while discussing their voting habits or taste in talk radio. As with most such books, considerably less space is devoted to the extravagant excesses of European travel, arts-enrichment programs or collecting first editions.

One of the running themes of the economist Robin Hanson's excellent blog is that arguments like the ones found in these books are actually an elite-status proxy war. They denigrate the one measure of high-visibility achievement—income—that public intellectuals don't do very well on. Reading "Shiny Objects," you get the feeling that he is onto something.

Share the Wealth!

The Inefficiency of Local Food

The Inefficiency of Local Food

Dumb locavores.

FishBarrel

A chrome extension for reporting misleading health claims found on the web to the FDA. (The link is for the British version, but it works for some other countries, too). I'm wondering if Lifehacker will promote this.

The Progressivity of the Tax System

The Progressivity of the Tax System: With all the rhetoric floating around regarding the "Buffett rule," it might be worth trying extra hard to keep an eye on the facts.  Here is the progressivity of the current tax system, according to the Tax Policy Center.  If you can remember only one fact, make it this one: The middle class (middle quintile) pays 14.1 percent of its income in federal taxes, while the rich (top tenth of one percent of the population) pay 30.4 percent.

Can this marriage be saved?

You’re at a dinner party. Your hostess regales you with a long, meandering tale of her recent back surgery. It ends with attempted humor: she laughs and glances at you. You laugh in response, trying to convey an appreciation for her humor that you don’t actually feel.... With your spouse of 25 years, you can simply stare at him stony-faced when he tells you his favorite “funny” story yet again.

If the story makes my spouse happy, it makes me happy, and I'll at least smile at that.

The middle class is...

A couple of days ago, Megan McArdle said she'd prefer

a single entitlement system that takes care of people who are actually destitute and unable to work, not this mad scheme whereby America's middle class is supposed to get rich by picking its own pockets.

Conn Carroll chimes in,

In order to pay for all their entitlement programs, the middle class is going to have to pay more, too.

"Marquee", not "marquis"

Evan Osnos writes,

The Murdoch-mania is so conspicuous that some Chinese viewers are asking if it has anything to do with the fact that it coincides with the moment that Party leaders are struggling to quell criticism over a train crash that casts doubt on the safety of a marquis political symbol, China’s high-speed rail network.

He means "marquee", not "marquis".

Fukushima as it was

This was mounted on a piece of plastic and given to me many years ago by an American who worked for a company building another reactor in Japan.

福島第一原子力発電所

France is not exactly libertarian

Speaking of French the "second family" of François Mitterrand and the "nocturnal escapades" Giscard d'Estaing and Jacques Chirac, Xavier Durringer claims,

The French people are quite willing to accept that politicians lead double lives, that they have affairs and mistresses. Infidelity and extramarital affairs are normal parts of life. France is a libertarian society; we have politicians who are a lot like us.

Although I realize the interview of a French director appearing in a German magazine was probably not conducted in English, France is by no means libertarian. Maybe he meant "libertine".

Insider trading among members of the House of Representatives

A study released Wednesday in the journal Business and Politics by Alan J. Ziobrowski of Georgia State University, James W. Boyd of Lindenwood University, Ping Cheng of Florida Atlantic University and Brigitte J. Ziobrowski of Augusta State University found

“...strong evidence that members of the House have some type of non-public information which they use for personal gain,” according to four academics who authored the study, “Abnormal Returns From the Common Stock Investments of Members of the U.S. House of Representatives.”

To the frustration of open-government advocates, lawmakers and their staff members largely have immunity from laws barring trading on insider knowledge that have sent many a private corporate chieftain to prison.

The watchdog group OpenSecrets.org said on its blog Wednesday that the findings suggest “that U.S. House members are using their powerful roles for more than just political gain.”

A niche that no one else has explored

David Rubinstein writes of the life of the college professor, and notes,

As Thomas Sowell has argued, building a scholarly reputation requires finding a niche that no one else has explored—often for good reason. I am hard pressed to explain why sometimes exquisitely esoteric interests should be supported by taxpayers: This expertise certainly does not match the educational needs of students.

The U.S. didn't reach per capita GDP of $16,740 until 1963

In the 1970s growth rates in western Europe and Japan cooled off at approximately the $16,740 threshold. Singapore’s early-1980s slowdown matches the model, as does the experience of South Korea and Taiwan in the late 1990s.

E.J. Dionne, political hack

Yuval Levin points this out:

First:

The passage of health care reform provided the first piece of incontestable evidence that Washington has changed.  Congress is, indeed, capable of carrying through fundamental social reform. No longer will the United States be the outlier among wealthy nations in leaving so many of its citizens without basic health coverage. In approving the most sweeping piece of social legislation since the mid-1960s, Democrats proved that they can govern, even under challenging circumstances and in the face of significant internal divisions.
     -E.J. Dionne, March 22, 2010

And second:

As if our political system were not having enough trouble already, we now confront the possibility that a highly partisan judiciary will undo a modest health-care reform that is a first step toward resolving a slew of other difficulties.
     -E.J. Dionne, May 12, 2011

Wow.

Cost of Illinois State Employee and Retiree Health Insurance

The table below shows average monthly retiree health costs for members and for the State in FY2011 and total state costs. These figures do not include the cost of coverage for retirees’ dependents; retirees are required to pay premiums for their dependents.

When people don't even have any idea of how much their benefits cost, much less have any responsibility for paying for them, is it any wonder that costs keep rising? The same problem is true of Obamacare.