Category Archives: here and there

Real Change…

…is repudiation of the no-nothing-ness of the past. From Bloomberg:

Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) — President-elect Barack Obama said the nation owes its military veterans “a sacred trust” and named retired four-star General Eric Shinseki to make the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs “a 21st century” system.

“No one will ever doubt that this former Army chief of staff has the courage to stand up for our troops and our veterans,” Obama said at a press conference in Chicago, held on the anniversary of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. “No one will ever question whether he will fight hard enough to make sure that they have the support that they need.”

Shortly before the 2003 U.S. invasion to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Shinseki told Congress it would take several hundred thousand troops to stabilize postwar Iraq, more than then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had estimated.

Rumsfeld roundly rejected Shinseki’s assessment, insisting the effort could be accomplished with a U.S. commitment of no more than 150,000 troops. He also cut short Shinseki’s tenure as chief of staff, which critics of the Bush administration said was punishment for Shinseki’s testimony.

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William Kristol on Economic Theory and Practice

I don’t usually read Bill Kristol’s column, but once in a while, my eyes get caught by a headline (that’s the difference between reading online and “on paper”), and I’ll check out what he has to say. The other day, I read his column “Admit we don’t know” on the current economic crisis that, while not in my mind “wrong”, seemed puzzling to me. Pay attention to the last paragraph (highlighted in bold).

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The Nobel Prize in Economics to Paul Krugman

From the The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel‘s description of Krugman’s scientific contributions:

Trade and Geography — Economies of Scale, Differentiated Products and Transport Costs

By the late 1980s, researchers had begun to integrate economies of scale into general equilibrium models of location and trade, thereby giving precision to the verbal analyses of earlier researchers and adding important new insights. In the resulting work, now commonly known as the new economic geography, economic geographers made use of the new tools, along with economists who took a renewed interest in the field. Several researchers took part in these developments, but the most influential contributions were made by Paul Krugman.

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“Do I Feel Lucky?”

Reader Bruce Hall inquires why Econbrowser has not weighed in on the rescue debate. First, I’ll observe there has been plenty of commentary on the web. But if compelled, then speaking only for myself, I think the members of Congress who voted against the plan the first time should, this time around, ask themselves this single question: “Do I Feel Lucky?” Those who are familiar with this quote will understand my meaning.

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