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Monday Links

Nathaniel Ward — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 01:11:13 +0000

James Ceasar explains how the passion for Obama can be traced to radical thinking about replacing traditional religion with a “Religion of Humanity.”

Nathaniel Ward — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:34:41 +0000

Campaign Finance Reform’s Unending Quest to Limit Our Rights. Bradley Smith explains how campaign finance "reform" has continued to erode basic constitutional protections: "every time we close off one avenue of political participation, politically active Americans will turn to the next most effective legal means of carrying on their activity. That next most effective means will then become the loophole that must be closed."
Gmail Users Are More Active on Social Media.
The GOP Shouldn’t Count It’s Chickens Just Yet. Ramesh Ponnuru: "Republicans shouldn't get carried away. There are 10 months to go before the midterm elections, and the political climate can change a lot in that time."

Nathaniel Ward — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:12:54 +0000

Did Deregulation Really Cause the Crash? Russ Roberts: "If you lift the speed limit from 65 miles per hour to 200 miles per hour and someone crashes going 195, it would be strange to blame the crash on the change in the speed limit. The question remains as to why someone would be so reckless."
Teaching Business School Students to Think Creatively.
The Right Way and the Wrong Way to Simplify Taxes. "For the Obama Administration, the new regulation is a way to try to increase tax revenues without Congress having to pass a law…Here's a better idea: If Washington doesn't like taxpayers working the system of legal deductions to reduce their tax burden, it can always simplify the code and flatten the rates."

Nathaniel Ward — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:25:01 +0000

Rock Solid HTML Emails How to build e-mails that work in every e-mail client.
How Apple Leaks Information "Often Apple has a need to let information out, unofficially. The company has been doing that for years, and it helps preserve Apple's consistent, official reputation for never talking about unreleased products."
Todd Zywicki on Proposed New Credit Card Limits. "What would happen if the Merchants Payments Coalition gets its way and politicians squeeze interchange fees? Credit cards are essentially a closed economic system: A reduction in interchange fees will have to be offset by increased revenues elsewhere or a reduction in costs. For example, issuers could try to increase the revenue generated from consumers through higher interest payments, higher penalty fees, or reinstating annual fees."

Nathaniel Ward — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 06:04:51 +0000

What Made American Universities Great. "Ivy League institutions rose to greatness only after being cut off from state aid and meddling."
What’s the Matter With California? William Vogeli explains how the "big-spending, high-taxing, lousy-services paradigm" is ruining California's appeal.
Dave Barry Looks Back on 2009. Choice quote: "Washington, rejecting 'business as usual,' finally stopped trying to solve every problem by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it and instead started trying to solve every problem by throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars at it."

Nathaniel Ward — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:44:19 +0000

Richard Epstein: Harry Reid Turns Insurance Into a Public Utility. "The argument seems to be that price controls alone can force out the waste and inefficiency that are posited to be the hallmark of private markets. By this twisted logic, rent control is the perfect path to efficient competitive markets."
Creating Incentives for Learning. "Mr. Toby's main proposal, then, is to require good grades and test scores from those seeking federal student loans. This requirement, he believes, would improve incentives for academic performance and mitigate the inevitable trade-off between widening access to college and maintaining educational standards."
Exactly Why the Founders Divided the Legislative Branch. E.J. Dionne argues against checks and balances: "In a normal democracy, such majorities would work their will, a law would pass, and champagne corks would pop. But everyone must get it through their heads that thanks to the bizarre habits of the Senate, we are no longer a normal democracy."
Debunking Conspiracy Theories. "Today no conspiracist publication or Web site wants for the outward flourishes of scholarship. The footnotes are compendious, the sources are seemingly authoritative. It is only when you get in amongst them that you discover what the footnotes actually refer to."

Nathaniel Ward — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:07:54 +0000

Nathaniel Ward — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:10:59 +0000

Nathaniel Ward — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:11:38 +0000

Inappropriate and Unacceptable Language. "As a society, we strive to eradicate moral language, hoping to eliminate the intolerance that often accompanies it. But intolerance has not been eliminated, merely thrust underground."
Dealing with America’s fiscal hole | The Economist "[I]gnoring the future is also costly. The problem is not the deficits in the next couple of years, but in the years that follow. Uncertainty over how taxes may be raised to shrink deficits may already be weighing on business confidence. Worries about inflation or default could start to push up interest rates. Eventually, private investment will be crowded out."
East and West Berlin. "West Berlin was full of bright colors, from shop windows and pennants flying on buildings, to the clothes worn by Berliners on the street. All of the buildings in East Berlin were gray and dirty. Some were still unoccupied and had bullet holes; they had never been repaired or renovated after the end of World War II. West Berlin was full of bright, sparkling vistas and shops filled with consumer goods of all kinds. East Berlin was dark and dingy."

Nathaniel Ward — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:26:41 +0000

Unintended Consequences of Credit Card ‘Reform.’ "'We basically socialized the bearing of the risk,' said Ken Clayton, managing director of card policy for the American Bankers Association, a trade group. 'That's why good customers sometimes have to bear the cost of the risk that others pose.'"
Ponnuru on Repositioning Conservatism. "The [GOP] problem has instead been that voters have not thought Republicans of any stripe had answers to their most pressing concerns. Addressing those concerns, rather than repositioning itself along the ideological spectrum, is the party's main challenge."
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