Keynes versus Hayek

Pretty obvious which I favor... :D

The Supremes do something good

I'm very happy about the decision this past week by SCOTUS to open the floodgates of corporations and, to a lesser extent, unions to run as many campaign adverts as they please. The reason I'm a fan is because, in the name of cleaning up elections, what's been done is that the two political factions have centralized control of campaign financing to an extent never before heard of -- if you're a state-level representative, up until this decision by SCOTUS, you'd better be kowtow'ing to the party line in DC or else your rivals in the primary would take all the available financing money. This has led to the recent increase in our already venemously partisan governance. By giving politicians someone else to go out to, hat in hand, besides just the party committees, we'll get better governance.

There's a counter-argument that party committees are limited in the amount they can donate: that's true, but they work around that fact by having party committees from all over the country write the checks, multiplying the limit by the number of local committees available, thus being the only source of "big pocket" funds.

This decision will help moderate candidates, in spite of the histrionics on the radio, and I'm very happy with it.

Great Infografic

From Visual Economics. The upper-right corner's the real kicker.

Unemployments Compared

Courtesy of the boffins over at Calculated Risk.

Nuff Said: Interesting Chart

In the interests of cheerfulness, I'll leave the term "interesting" unqualified. :o)