Friday Links and Roundup

As Nick is traveling, I’m covering the Friday Links today. This week, we covered the BP oil spill, our love and hate of cars, the future of small scale slaughethouses, the worker suicides in China, deficit debates, the movement for a separation of corporation and state, and Hilary Clinton’s misinformation. Serious Links Oil flow appears [...]

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Hillary Caught in a Lie?

Hillary Clinton gave a speech at Brookings yesterday on the Obama admin’s national security strategy. During Q&A, the issue of deficits came up. Leaving aside the implicit deficit confusion issues, she also made a lie, and the state department left it in the transcript: This is a very personally painful issue for me because it won’t [...]

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The 28th Amendment

The Blame Game surrounding the oil spill has BP blaming Transocean, the owner of the drilling rig, who in turn blames Halliburton’s cement work to cap the well. And of course, this is also a failure of the Minerals Management Services to evaluate and regulate the drilling operation, so many are blaming the “revolving door” [...]

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Conventional Madness and Fiscal Policy

Paul Krugman finds a gem in the OECD Economic outlook, which argues that the Fed should start increasing interest rates by the end of 2010. This, he notes, is in spite of the OECD’s own outlook for low inflation and high unemployment through 2011. Krugman writes, The only explanation seems to be at the beginning of [...]

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iPad Suicides and Capitalist Alienation

As an owner of several Apple products, I’ve been tracking the disturbing story of working conditions inside the Foxcomm factory in China, where the iPad is assembled. People tend to forget that the relative low cost of our electronics are not just the result of technology, but also of the continued exploitation of labor. According [...]

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Small is beautiful, and healthy

In an attempt to protect the safety of consumers, the USDA is actually making things worse. Changes in food production in the United States, to large scale farming and feeding operations, have created new and formidable public health challenges. An E. coli outbreak, now more common due to the fast-paced and high volume slaughter houses, [...]

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Autophobia

A new book by historian Brian Ladd explores love and hate in the automobile age: From the Model T to the SUV, Autophobia reveals that our vexed relationship with the automobile is nothing new—in fact, debates over whether cars are forces of good or evil in our world have raged for over a century now, ever [...]

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The Big Picture: BP Spill

Boston.com has a depressing series of photos from the BP oil spill, which may now equal 13 Exxon Valdez spills. Just remember that criticizing British Petroleum is un-American.

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Friday Links and Roundup

I’ve got some weekend homework, reading and reviewing Paul Collier’s book. Meanwhile, you need to catch up on what you may have missed this week on this blog: Brian Williams’ commencement address at ND; the Rise and Fall of GDP; Happiness, Norms, and Discount Rates; Galbraith and MMT; and Panera’s name-your-price store. Serious Links Chris [...]

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No Free Lunch? Try Panera

Panera Bread is trying something new at a St. Louis location: Panera Bread Co. has reopened a downtown Clayton location as a nonprofit where customers can pay what they can afford. “Take what you need, leave your fair share,” says a sign at the entrance of the Saint Louis Bread Company Cares Café. Patrons who can’t [...]

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