I'm really tired of hearing about the debt ceiling, and I've avoided contributing to the cacophony so far, but I just have to get this off my chest. It's not so much that I think one side is right and the other side is wrong. Rather, I think everyone who created this mess deserves a kick in the ass from every America. Unfortunately, parts our current problem are the result of … [Read more...] about No Way to Run a Country
Economics
Trump Craziness Is Deeper Than Birtherism
You've all heard about Donald Trump's weird obsession with Obama's birth certificate, right? Pretty crazy, huh? You ain't seen nothing yet. The real crazy shit will come when Trump starts explaining his policy proposals. That's not a prediction. It's a memory: CNN November 9, 1999 Billionaire businessman Donald Trump has a plan to pay off the national debt, grant a … [Read more...] about Trump Craziness Is Deeper Than Birtherism
A Long Post About Flat-Fee Lawyering
I don't know what Houston criminal defense lawyer Mark Bennett's politics are, but over the past couple of months he's been experiencing a classic example of the sort of thing that turns people into libertarians: Out of the blue, the government--in the form of the State Bar of Texas--wants to outlaw his business model. He usually charges clients a flat fee, but now the … [Read more...] about A Long Post About Flat-Fee Lawyering
Windy Investments
Mark's review of Michael Lewis's The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine sounds interesting. I generally find finance and economics difficult to read about, but I may give the book a go.From the sound of it, the author and I seem to have a couple of similar arguments about what is wrong with the efficient market. One premise I like to start with is that efficient … [Read more...] about Windy Investments
The Big Short, and a Modest Proposal
To my co-blogger Ken: I haven't seen you in a while, so we haven't had time to talk about any of the usual stuff, therefore I'm taking this opportunity to submit a modest proposal for your consideration. As you know, one of the areas where we disagree about economics issues is the subject of the efficient market hypothesis. I tend to believe those economists who say that the … [Read more...] about The Big Short, and a Modest Proposal