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Category Archives: politics

When the house places a bet

Apparently the key to Newt’s success in South Carolina was $5,000,000 donation from Sheldon Adelson.  Fortune says that Sheldon’s net worth is $21,500,000,000.   That  $5,000,000 was two hundredth of a percent (.02%) of his net worth.   I’m pretty well off, and if I multiple the price of my house times .02% I get an [...]

Labor Market Criminals

I want to quote this item from Talking Points Memo, because it is a nearly perfect example of how firms can structure their operations to avoid responsibility for actions that are criminal; in this case by pushing that criminality onto contractors. TPM Reader MM weighs in on last night’s comments on Vince and Linda McMahon: I don’t [...]

you can never say what you will never do

It makes me physically ill to think that the right wing and the idiot media managed to turn this eloquent beautiful speech into baseless acquisition of racism. It makes so angry that some moron in the Federal government decided to fire this wonderful woman. Shame! This was not chance. This was a malicious act by [...]

Thoughts on Health Reform

David Leonhardt’s piece this morning in the Times “In Health Card Bill, Obama Attacks Wealth Inequality” hits an exceptionally key point.   It’s written in a very balanced way.  I recommend it and I’m surprised that for those on the left this point hasn’t been more at the forefront of their thoughts and rhetoric over the last [...]

Polarization in the state legislatures.

Maybe I don’t read the right blogs but I’m delighted to see a blog post that actually looks at politics from the perspective of the common space scores.   The chart below shows the distribution of the scores for various state legislatures (i’ve no idea what the order means): This is a very instructive chart.  CA, UT, [...]

Growth Industry

Now what do they do?  Corporations that is.   I mean, given the license corporations have been granted.   Will they reward their friends on the Supreme court?  Have they jiggered the goals for their strategic planning people?  Where is the cookbook of standard recipes; e.g. what you do if your firm owns the big employer [...]

Economic Determinism

We all have various theories for what is drives elections.  For example: left v.s. right, race, social issues, economic issues, skilled campaigning, endorsements, slander, self-interest, get-out-the-vote, voter-suppression, candidate height, etc. etc.  In thinking about that it is critical to draw a distinction between what garners votes for a candidate, say his height, and how he [...]

Your word

Colbert is brilliant: The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c The Word – Honor Bound www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy … via Calculated Risk: Colbert: Honor Bound.

ugly

Oh man that is ugly, and as the column on the right shows household net worth is even worse.

Enabling Change

I was working with someone a while back who was in the midst of advocating for an alternative approach inside his organization.  He was frustrated.  He was deeply convinced of the benefits of his new approach and frustrated by his colleagues passivity.  My first thought was to recall a few of my lists, for example [...]