Argghhh! PeP Links: Pirates Edition

Here is a piece from the Times Online (home of my favorite Car Writer, also Top Gear Host, Jeremy Clarkson) on the recent rash of, er, Piracy.

Somali pirates are demanding a $25 million ransom for a seized Saudi Super Tanker.

Here is an article that discusses difficulties the Yemenis have encountered with Piracy.

Matt Yglesias discusses the problems with policing piracy on the open seas, namely, the ocean is very, very big and ships aren't so big thus making policing cost prohibitive for many nations.  He also talks about how we screwed ourselves by encouraging the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia which has increased the lawlessness of Somalia.  A nation without order typically does wonders for breeding terrorism and piracy.  Who would have thought?

Here is a Slate Explainer on Piracy.

Here's a Boston Globe article on Peter Leeson (a GMU economist) who is obsessed with Piracy and its organizational structure (hint: democracy and workers comp).  Here is an academic article by Leeson fleshing out his take on Piracy and it's organizational structer.  Here's the intro:

"This article investigates the internal governance institutions of violent

criminal enterprise by examining the law, economics, and organization

of pirates. To effectively organize their banditry, pirates required

mechanisms to prevent internal predation, minimize crew conflict,

and maximize piratical profit. Pirates devised two institutions for this

purpose. First, I analyze the system of piratical checks and balances

crews used to constrain captain predation. Second, I examine how

pirates used democratic constitutions to minimize conflict and create

piratical law and order. Pirate governance created sufficient order and

cooperation to make pirates one of the most sophisticated and successful

criminal organizations in history."

PeP Links: Transition and Conservative Crackup Edition

Transition:

Here is the bio on one of the frontrunners for the next Supreme Court vacancy.  When my employer (Uncle Sam) was being sued he was on the panel and had an excellent grasp of the record and asked really inciteful questions.

Here is the Scotus Blog with a more thorough list of possible SCOTUS appointments.

Here is a piece from TNR on Tim Geithner who is a short lister for the Treasury.  Larry Summers is mentioned also as a likely candidate.  I tend to think Summers has a greater chance if for no other reason than that Geithner is currently pretty busy as president of the Fed Reserve Bank of New York where he is playing a central role in trying to contain the financial meltdown.  Paul Volcker is another contender.

It appears Rahm Emanuel will be Obama's  Chief of Staff.

John Podesta, former Clinton Chief of Staff, is the head of the Obama transition team and is a candidate for energy secretary.

Conservative Crackup:

Here is a panel of conservatives on the conservative crack up and what to do moving forward. My favorite suggestion is Tucker Carlson's that we actually put forth a candidate that has demonstrates some degree of fluency in English.

Over at Culture 11 Conor Friedorsdorf proposes a series of panels to discuss the political challenges facing conservatism and possible policy responses.  I love the idea for the title- Conservatism- What the F-ck? (Obviously the liberal equivalent would be: Liberalism- What the Fuck?)

And This Just Cracks Me Up:

The boys over at Powerline demanding to know when Obama will back away from this whole global warming hoax.

PeP Links

Oprah loves the Kindle.  

Greg Mankiw has an op-ed on the dearth of certainty amongst economists is going on and what will happen.

Signs that the housing market is starting to bottom out.

The plus side of a recession: Income Inequality diminishes significantly.  Not much solace though, as Len Burman points out "Only if you don't like rich people," says Len Burman of the Tax Policy Center. "It's not like their share decline brings improvements for the middle class or the rest of America."

The Treasury is about to give out another $125 billion to banks.

PeP Links

Colin Powell may endorse Obama on Sunday.

Warren Buffett says "buy, buy" and repeats his mantra: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful." The one thing about the meltdown is this is something of a windfall for us younger folks, assuming everything doesn't go to complete hell.

Bill Poole, former Fed Chief of the St. Louis Fed, believes the Treasury is exceeding its authority with the new capital infusion project.

James Surowiecki, he of the "Wisdom of the Crowds", has a new blog: "The Balance Sheet".

PeP Links

Brad DeLong has an illuminating column on how the policy responses to the financial meltdown have evolved.

An online betting firm (based in Ireland) has declared the election over and started paying out to those who bet on an Obama victory.

Southwest has just posted its first quarterly loss ever.  File this one under sign of the times.

This article discusses the uproar over an abortion ship.  This reminds me of a bit by Chris Rock involving Pro-Choice rallies and young lads, but this is a family blog, so I will let you fill in the rest.

PeP Links and Random Thoughts

Bob Barr is running for president on the Libertarian Party ticket. However, Bob Barr is no libertarian. He is a small government conservative. So while he is a critic of the expansion of executive power and the war in Iraq there are areas he is where he significantly departs from libertarian priorities: he is a hardcore drug warrior, anti-immigration, and a social conservative. Actually, Barr represents basically what the conservative coalition candidates have been about until Bush: an unrealistic fiscal plan (heavy on tax cuts/heavy on spending cuts) as a sop to Grover Norquist and business conservatives, skepticism/hostility of government (and military intervention abroad) to entice libertarians, and an emphasis of hostility towards gays and a firm pro-life position to appeal to social conservatives. In a tight election, I think Barr's presence would be a significant problem for McCain, much more so than Nader was for Gore. He cannot be dismissed out of hand as fringe character (he was a significant player in the Republican party till not too long ago). Nevertheless, I think Obama (or in the off chance that Clinton snatches the nomination away) will trounce McCain, thus Barr's impact is likely to be irrelevant.

Go read Cato-Unbound's lead essay. The topic is the resource curse. The author, Leif Wenar, proposes approaching the resource curse as a property rights issue. His premise is that a given country's resource is the property not of the government but of the people. What he is getting at is that every country should have some sort of trust fund like in Alaska where people are reaping the dividends of extracted resources. I think that's a great idea, but his proposal for bringing a resource trust about are troubling on many dimensions and impractical. He presents the scenario of Sudan selling $3billion of oil to China and plowing the money into its civil war/ethnic cleansing. The US would create a trust for the Sudanese people and impose tariffs on Chinese imports till there was $3 billion in the fund. It's one of those ideas that strikes you as novel, sort of an aha moment, and then of a sudden you realize its massive flaws. For instance, how do you get the money to the Sudanese people? What if you actually get money into the hands of actual Sudanese as opposed to the government only to find that they use the money to arm themselves? Should Europe impose tariffs on US imports to fund a trust for Iraqis? What if the Sudanese use the monies received to invest in infrastructure or education? etc. Anyhow, it's an interesting if clumsy attempt to grapple with a very serious problem.

Anne Applebaum makes the case for intervening in Burma. I guess if we are invading Iraq for among other reasons to promote democracy, why not invade a country for strictly humanitarian reasons. This is the dangerous logic that Iraq has spawned. I don't know quite what one does. Do you fly over Burmese airspace and carpet bomb them with food, clothing and medicine? I do think these types of tragedies are situations where the US should be grabbing onto to try to improve our international reputation.

Over at Gristmill they have a good rundown on McCain's cap and trade plan. The takeaway is that it is nowhere near as serious as Obama's plan but does pass the laugh test. A low bar admittedly, but I have low expectations for McCain. For me a cap and trade is clearly inferior to a carbon tax, and a cap and trade that does not auction permits is piss poor. Though, sometimes piss poor is an improvement (which is possibly the case).

PeP Links: Education

Cato Unbound is having a discussion on Education. The Lead Essay is by Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute. The thrust of his essay was that "A Nation at Risk" got it wrong and we should approach education with the mindset that we could be doing better in contrast with a "the sky is falling mentality".

Slate has a ten part series called "Fixing It". The education component is written by UVA law professor Jim Ryan and he has some sensible recommendations: amend NCLB to have tests at less regular intervals but in more subject areas, nationalized standards, and use Teach for America or a similar vehicle to transform teaching into prestigious profession.

City Journal had a forum a while back amongst right-of-center education reform advocates as to whether school choice or institutional reform was the proper way forward.

PeP Links

Anatol Lieven has a column over at the Financial Times (the world's best pink paper) detailing why we should be wary of a McCain presidency.

Spencer Ackerman has an article on Obama's likely foreign policy approach over at the American Prospect.

Julian Sanchez has a pair of interesting columns on wiretapping, one at the Los Angeles Times and one at the American Spectator.

Tyler Cowen has an interesting post on stagnant wages.

Inside Higher Ed has an interesting post on affirmative action at universities.

PeP Links

No theme

Noam Scheiber has an article on the cotorie of economists advising Obama (an encouraging article to somebody from the right like me).

The NY Times has a story on how remittances to Mexico have leveled off.

Jakob Hacker has a column in the LA Times pleading with Clinton and Obama to stop their pissing match over whether there should be a mandate. He also makes the case that Universal Health Care along the lines of either plan will amount to a free lunch. Color me skeptical. I am in favor of Universal Health Care but there is very little in either plan that does anything about cost control. Both plans are essentially expanding the current system to people who are uncovered. Obama's main health advisor, Jonathon Cutler- probably the preeminent health economist, basically thinks we should be willing to spend 20% GDP on health care. What I didn't realize about Obama's plan is that it features federal re-insurance which I think is a very productive idea. If you coupled that with a phase out of the tax exemption of health care I think you could really do something about enhancing the portability of health care, increasing access, while decreasing unit prices.

Where Life almost imitates Art. Boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko, IBF tilte holder, moves one step closer to a unified title by beating Sultan Ibragimov, WBO title holder. Sort of like Rocky IV except if Ivan Drago had fought his twin brother.

Random, there is an entire site dedicated to tips on waking up early. I may actually peruse this as my work day starts between 6:30-7:00.

PeP Daily Links

Public Transportation Edition:

Ed Glaeser has an interesting article on how public transportation contributes to the concentration of poverty in urban areas. hat tip: Ryan Avent (Ryan Avent has a blog, the Bellows, that focuses on transportation and planning mostly as related to D.C. and is uniformly interesting).

The Ideas Primary, a sounding board for the DLC, has an interesting proposal on funding passenger rail (something we should do more of in my opinion at the expense of highway funding)

Ryan Avent pines for light rail in D.C. and a cross town metro line. I agree. Mandingo what say you?

Here is an interesting post on the proliferation of light rail in America over at The GoodSpeed Update.

PeP Daily Links

Fiscal Stimulus Edition:

Paul Krugman has an interesting post on how to effectively target fiscal stimuli.

Bruce Bartlett argues that fiscal stimulus delivers little bang for the buck and that we should skip the whole mess altogether. He touches on Friedman's permanent income hypothesis which Krugman also gets into in his post.

Dean Baker argues we should have a Green Stimulus Package over at TPMCafe. The thrust of his proposal is to offer tax credits/rebates to businesses for the installation of Green building stuffs or something like that.

Greg Mankiw argues, channeling Paul Krugman, that we should skip fiscal stimulus altogether or at least until the fed has demonstrated its monetary tools to be ineffective.

Jason Furman and the Brookings Institute have put out a handy dandy white paper on when and how to administer a fiscal stimulus.

Peter Orzag, CBO Director, has a couple of good posts summarizing fiscal stimulus options.

Arnold Kling offers his typically curmudgeonly perspective on fiscal stimulus (I say this as a positive). Short version: Politicians screw everything up, mainstream macro in this area is voodoo, since this is an election year politicians will really screw it up.

PeP Links

There is a really interesting forum on the economics and history of Marriage over at Cato-Unbound.

Tim Harford (aka the undercover economist) has an article over at Slate comparing Facebook and Ikea. I thought this would be business case study porn but it was underwhelming (this generally describes Tim Harford).

Somebody who is an avid Marginal Revolution reader made a webpage consisting of links to a MR recurring feature: Markets in Everything. My favorite edition of Markets in Everything: the Russian company who for a fee develops alibis for adulterers.

Daniel Gross wrote a slightly funny, heavily obnoxious column (as per his usual) imploring rich people to spend money to help the U.S. stave off a recession (probably too late).

The folks over at TPMcafe, formerly one of my favorite sites until they discontinued the TPMCafe book club, have a post on what John Edward's next act should be. Her is my suggestion, withdraw from public life. Here is my bet, campaign for president, remind people that his father worked at a mill.