There’s a lot going on right now. Too much, in fact, what with Europe teetering on the edge, Romney flying around the world with both feet in his mouth, half of India dark, and something fun going on in London. All of that is too much to comment on individually. But it all ties together,… Continue reading …And All That
Category: Politics
Different Rules
If there is one thing that is evident this election cycle (and, more broadly, throughout the ongoing financial meltdown that has been going on for years now), it’s that the wealthy play by a very different set of rules from the rest of us. Sometimes, the things they do are technically illegal, but end up… Continue reading Different Rules
Health Care, The Future, and All The Fish
So the Supreme Court did the “unexpected” (expected by constitutional scholars and those in the know, but unexpected by the media, so therefore unexpected) and upheld the bulk of Obamacare, specifically the mandate. Medicaid expansion was tweaked, and there are some arguments that the limits on the Commerce Clause is the real far-reaching story of… Continue reading Health Care, The Future, and All The Fish
One More Thing
One more thing to add to my rant from yesterday: Congress has been debating whether or not to keep the interest rate on student loans at 3.4%, or to increase it to 6.8%. The standard student loan payoff period is 10 years. Currently, the interest rate the U.S. pays on a 10-year Treasury note is… Continue reading One More Thing
Stupid or Evil?
It’s rather hard to be optimistic about the economy these days, since the common consensus around the world is that the best way to cure the economy is to drain it of blood until it has none left. Lots of people have been harping on this for years now, but it’s not getting better. In… Continue reading Stupid or Evil?
The Roulette Wheel
Lots of digital ink has been spilled about JP Morgan’s $2 billion trading loss. I don’t want to add too much more, except to call out one issue that I think has been downplayed through all of this: the notion that JP Morgan “lost” the money.
Another One Bites The Dust
I was a Political Science major in college. One of the classes I took was on state government, and as part of that class, everybody had to do a report on the politics of a randomly-assigned state. I happened to have been assigned Indiana. So I dug into the books in the library (back when… Continue reading Another One Bites The Dust
Being Right
There’s a lot of commentary about the French and Greek elections this week. Some of it is rather apoplectic (more deserved in Greece than France), but for all the talk of extremism, a lot of the debate misses the mark. What really matters, and what is just as applicable in this country as elsewhere, is… Continue reading Being Right
My Fantastic Stadium Plan
Watching the legislative session from the sidelines, instead of being in the trenches, is an interesting experience. It’s certainly been fun to watch the fecklessness, especially with regards to the stadium issue, which reached a new low yesterday when the super-secret GOP plan to pay for the stadium with general obligation, a.k.a. taxpayer bonds, was… Continue reading My Fantastic Stadium Plan
Words Mean Things
This past weekend, I went up to my hometown in Central Minnesota to visit some friends. This being Central Minnesota (also known as Michele Bachmann’s district), all sorts of fun political signs were in abundance. There were the old standbys, like hand-painted anti-abortion signs on farms and “U.S. out of the U.N.” graffiti so old… Continue reading Words Mean Things