I've been wanting to write a bunch of posts about the crisis in the auto industry and why I think a bailout is a bad idea, but I haven't had time, so here are a few quick observations. Automakers are not like power companies. One of the arguments for bailing out the financial sector was that banks are like the electric power companies: Everything else depends on them. … [Read more...] about Solving the Auto Industry Crisis
A Telling Mistake
In a New York Times story, writer Monica Davey describes the governor of Illinois this way: Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich is a polished speaker who can win over elderly women at luncheons in southern Illinois with his earnest attention and eloquently recite historical anecdotes from the lives of the leaders he says he most admires... Then, a few paragraphes later, there's this … [Read more...] about A Telling Mistake
Of Shooting Galleries And Gun-Free Zones
Jennifer Abel is a brilliant libertarian writer and master of the devastating observation: You know those amusement-park shooting galleries where you use an air rifle to knock down multiple rows of moving mechanical ducks? The way they work is, you shoot at the targets all you want, and none of the targets can shoot back. Most schools and workplaces operate on the same … [Read more...] about Of Shooting Galleries And Gun-Free Zones
In the Bookbag: The Cure for Our Broken Political Process
I just received a review copy of The Cure for Our Broken Political Process: How We Can Get Our Politicians to Resolve the Issues Tearing Our Country Apart by Sol Erdman and Lawrence Susskind which purports to tell us how to fix our government so that our leaders will spend less time fighting with each other and more time solving our problems. Naturally, I'm … [Read more...] about In the Bookbag: The Cure for Our Broken Political Process
Best Line About Blagojevich
Megan McArdle puts it in perspective: Most of my friends are libertarians, and hence tend to assume that this sort of quid pro quo is in fact how people get appointments. But we thought it was done with some subtlety, a nudge and a wink, not full frontal demands for payola... There's something really sad about having gone so far that your indelicacy actually amazes the … [Read more...] about Best Line About Blagojevich