Is Austerity a Mistake?
A new paper from researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogo ff, has set the wonk world ablaze by debunking…
Information Processing
Representative sample
Recall the 2009 hullabaloo about how the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, required “four reams of paper” to print, because its length clocked in at “thousands of pages”? While some of this…
March 24, 2013March 24, 2013
The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things: the Unconscious Roots of Conservative Ideology
The ideal of democracy – a well-informed public engaged in good faith in a passionate, yet reasoned debate – has never truly existed. Still, if one removes the qualifiers from the previous…
February 24, 2013May 5, 2013
Senator Rape
Dear Arkansas State Senator Jason Rapert (R-Conway): when people were talking about “the rape caucus,” it was not actually supposed to be an official thing. I mean…
February 22, 2013February 22, 2013
“Alright then, I’ll go to hell.”
In honor of the publication in 1885 of “Huckleberry Finn,” let’s talk about how ahead of the curve America’s Favorite Ginger Mark Twain was on practically every serious issue facing the country….
February 18, 2013February 18, 2013
The art of selling out
In an op-ed today in the NYT, Lance Hosey makes the pragmatic case for beauty: “Take color. Last year, German researchers found that just glancing at shades of green can boost creativity…
February 15, 2013February 16, 2013
The ‘Wizard of Blogs’
Nick Denton has written precisely one book, a 1996 exposé of the collapse of Barings Bank called “All That Glitters.” It did not perform particularly well commercially, nor did it receive outstanding…