SCSUScholars

• Media alerts

  I will be on KNSI's Hot Talk with the Ox and Mike Landy around 10:20 this morning to discuss economic news, including Dubai, where things are getting really antsy now.
  
  Just as advanced notice, I will be also substitute hosting for Don Lyons on KNSI's Morning Show [...]
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  Posted: November 30, 2009, 9:44am EST
  

• From a slouch to a dash

  A year ago when Pelosi and Bush decided to go forward bailing out the auto industry, David Brooks wondered if we are sliding into progressive corporatism. I went further with this in March. Now comes Jerry O'Driscoll.
  

  First, the Fed announced that it will evaluate bankers’ pay' [...]

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  Posted: November 27, 2009, 12:03pm EST
  

• Not economist, just wrong

  Al Gore, apparently not content with the job of cleaning the Climategate mess, is now opining on GDP accounting.
  Surely a broader accounting of economic activity will enhance economic policy and decision-making. We commend the work of Professor Joseph Stiglitz and the Commission on the Measurement of Economic [...]
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  Posted: November 27, 2009, 11:19am EST
  

• Come nigh Dubai

  I was looking at my cellphone between Thanksgiving dinner and dessert and saw the news on Dubai. So far it doesn't seem like that big a deal; while the U.S. market dropped a good 1.5% at the open, remember that most traders are out of town for the weekend' [...]
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  Posted: November 27, 2009, 10:34am EST
  

• Because it worked so well last time

  Did you like Cash for Clunkers? The government is planning an encore.
  

  On the heels of its ballyhooed "Cash for Clunkers" program for cars, the federal government is expected to finalize details in the coming weeks of another tax-supported shopping extravaganza, known as "Cash for Appliances."

  Supported [...]

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  Posted: November 27, 2009, 9:38am EST
  

• Media alert

  I will be substituting for Don Lyons on the KNSI Morning Show tomorrow from 6 to 8 am tomorrow on AM 1450. Listen in while you shop or have a leisurely breakfast. [...]
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  Posted: November 26, 2009, 5:50pm EST
  

• A grateful heart

  Many of you will know the song "Give Thanks" from a more modern Christian service, which first instructs us to give thanks with a grateful heart. What does that mean to you this day?
  I walk upstairs from my office, and on the couch I see Littlest asleep. Buttercup [...]
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  Posted: November 26, 2009, 10:58am EST
  

• Happy Thanksgiving

  We Americans are most fortunate, living in what is still the freest country on the planet.
  
  We have been blessed with a nation whose military fights to protect freedom. Our nation is rich in natural resources, has a system of government that is the best devised yet, provides incredible [...]
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  Posted: November 26, 2009, 7:45am EST
  

• Quick followup on dispositions: Preaching to the choir

  While on the air with Ed this afternoon, he posted about FIRE's followup on the University of Minnesota's growing controversy over its attempt to have "cultural competency" as part of its education program. (We discussed it here Monday.) "Growing" because FIRE's investigation found that the education program [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 8:14pm EST
  

• A veil of comradeship and colleagueship

  I was going to write something about Angus' post on peer-review and the lessons of Climategate, but much of this has been covered by Stephen Karlson, who has organized a great deal of the latter critique. He's linked pretty much all I've read.
  Let me confine myself then [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 7:07pm EST
  

• Media alerts

  I'll be on WJON with Jay Caldwell at about 10:40am CT today for my usual discussion of area economic conditions. Your live listen link is there.
  
  I will also be on the Ed Morrissey Show at 2pm CT to discuss the latest economic news, where the jobs' [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 9:44am EST
  

• Also sprach ZaKrugman

  Why, people ask, would I want to compare us to Belgium and Italy? Both countries are a mess! ... If these countries can run up debts of more than 100 percent of GDP without being destroyed by bond vigilantes, so can we.Yoohoo! Mr. Nobel! Greece would like a [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 4:21pm EST
  

• A U.S. Tobin tax?

  Two weeks after their party's leaders told Gordon Brown to stick it, two Democratic congressmen want to tax financial transactions to partly reduce the deficit, and partly to build a kitty for public sector jobs. (h/t: Andy)
  Under a bill being drafted by Democratic Reps. Peter DeFazio [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 3:47pm EST
  

• You're just trying too hard

  Music departments at public universities naturally want to give concerts at the end of each semester, a culmination of their work and study. Political correctness has made this a headache for them as one cannot possibly make reference to religion of any kind. Our campus this year is using "[...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 10:08am EST
  

• Deepening production vs ramping up production

  I think Arnold Kling is onto something here:
  If everyone scans the headlines and sees "Great Depression," that could very well cause a drop in consumption. And if everyone scans the headlines and sees "recovery," they might spend more.
  
  We could also observe herd behavior among producers. I [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 4:46pm EST
  

• Dispositions back in the news

  Katherine Kersten brings back an old topic on this blog: dispositions theory in education. There's a new design of teacher education at the University of Minnesota, she says:
  

  The initiative is premised, in part, on the conviction that Minnesota teachers' lack of "cultural competence" contributes to the poor [...]

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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 1:53pm EST
  

• I don't understand newspapers

  According to the City Pages, the proper way to interview Congresswoman Bachmann is:
  Q: Gov. Tim Pawlenty said on MSNBC that moderates need to fall in line with the conservative base of the Republican Party. Do you agree?
  A: I think that he's accurate that ...
  Q: AND [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 1:32pm EST
  

• Local responsibility for taxes reduces spending

  Property taxes would increase an average of 3.5 percent across Minnesota next year if local governments adopt their proposed levies, the state Revenue Department announced Thursday.
  
  That would be less than the 5.6 percent increase in average property taxes this year and the average 6.9 percent increase over the [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 5:09pm EST
  

• Declare victory, supply-siders

  I was listening to an interview of Bruce Bartlett the other day. You might remember him if you're about my age and a fan of supply-side economics as being one of its leading lights. He's recently fallen on hard times in Republican circles for saying a tax cut isn't [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 4:45pm EST
  

• Two good paragraphs

  The individual insurance mandate, then, is a solution to a problem the bill itself would create. The authors invoke the Commerce Clause to protect interstate commerce from a threat they themselves pose to it. They could avert the threat simply by not imposing guaranteed-issue on insurers.From Sheldon Richman today. [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 1:01pm EST
  

• Random thought while playing a video in class

  I was watching the Commanding Heights third episode in class this afternoon. The first half of the episode deals with the financial crises of the 1990s, and after reading Arnold Kling and Simon Johnson this morning I thought to myself: boy the numbers got bigger! $50 billion [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 5:09pm EST
  

• Gross jobs

  From December 2008 to March 2009 the number of job losses from closing and contracting establishments remained essentially unchanged at 8.5 million. The number of job gains from opening and expanding private sector establishments fell from 6.7 million to 5.7 million, the lowest level since the series began in 1992, [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 4:40pm EST
  

• The limits of a CBO score

  I've been reading the CBO/JCT report on the Reid health care plan. See Keith Hennessey for your first cut on new taxes; I'm going to confine this post to things I found interesting that he does not mention. Ed Morrissey links to a second CBO letter [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 3:35pm EST
  

• I should have known better

  I have to agree with Benjamin: "what a sad devolution". I knew posting this would lead to some trolling and counter-trolling, but the volume and vitriol are amazing. I'd invite those commenters to re-read this symposium from the Center for the American Experiment. A taste:
  One explanation' [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 6:30pm EST
  

• Bloggiversary

  Let Freedom Ring is five. Here's a comparison. When the internet first started its biggest use to me was for fantasy baseball. I've played with dozens of other enthusiasts since 1992, and a few of them have stuck as friends afterwards. I can count those on one hand. I' [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 2:21pm EST
  

• Bang for your tuition buck

  This makes me sad: the American Council of Trustees and Alumni has created a website asking "What will they learn?" as a counterweight to all those criteria used by popular lists by U.S. News and Kiplinger's. (See Ashley Thorne's review.) Their seven required core courses are excellent, [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 10:33am EST
  

• Waste, fraud and abuse

  Every time some report comes out about it, the White House gets all wee-wee'd up. No different this time:
  The federal government made $98 billion in improper payments in fiscal 2009, and President Obama will issue an executive order in coming days to combat the problem, his budget director' [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 10:06am EST
  

• They assume they know you

  While I was reading Eric's post, I came upon a title on that same site "Fear and Loathing in White Cloud." 'White Cloud' is a smear that people put on my fair city, and has been one I've heard pretty much since I moved' [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 8:19am EST
  

• Understanding tenure

  Eric Austin (sometimes known as Political Muse of Liberal in the Land of Conservatives) chatted via Twitter with me one night about tenure. Sometimes our chats are public, and sometimes not. We had arrived at an understanding about it. Last night he tweets that he has written a [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 6:50pm EST
  

• For those of you scoring at home

  The "Blue Dog" Democrats, 44 'fiscally conservative' congresspersons, did not acquit themselves well in this year, says the Heritage Foundation, via Stephen Moore:
  On three votes that would massively expand the size of government -- the stimulus plan, cap and trade, and health care reform -- Blue Dogs mostly [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 12:27pm EST
  

• Actuary: Pelosicare adds 23 million to Medicaid, 18 million to pay health care tax

  
  Courtesy of Keith Hennessey. Memo from Chief Actuary of Medicare and Medicaid Rick Foster here. Hennessey notes that the 18 million who are "uninsured and paying the penalty tax" are "clearly worse off than they would be under current law" because they end [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 3:23pm EST
  

• Increase taxes or reduce spending 4%, lose GDP

  Assuming no major changes in federal government tax and spending policies, the federal deficit and debt picture looks bleak. The picture is similar to that of the CBO (2009b) and Auerbach and Gale (2009), although in the present case all the macroeconomic endogeneity has been accounted for.
  
  ...Personal income [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 2:59pm EST
  

• You can always call him stupid ex post

  I'm sorry I was traveling this morning and had missed the second half of the game last night. Had I been home, I would have seen Bill Belichick's call on fourth and two, which Gary has already emailed me made him an idiot, and which Ed has posted' [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 12:24pm EST
  

• Two questions

  Both of a personal nature:
  I'm off radio this weekend to take a long-planned trip with my brother. His birthday is Sunday and he's a big Steelers fan, so I'm meeting up with him in Pittsburgh with tickets for Sunday's game versus the Bengals, with first place in the AFC [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 12:09pm EST
  

• D.C. index vanity

  You know, Washington isn't the only place where checking the index is commonplace.
  As a delightful insider's joke on the inbred Washington political establishment, the [Sarah Palin] book has no index. So they can't find mention of themselves while browsing in the store. Buy it or lump it.Academics do' [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 11:52am EST
  

• Letter from Chad the budding economist

  Chad writes by email:
  I've been meaning to ask you for a while about the way that imports impact GDP. If Americans stop buying as much stuff at Wal-mart, imports go down which means GDP looks better. But few would take that as a positive sign.That question is a' [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 11:17am EST
  

• Supply curves slope upward

  Producers provide less at lower prices:Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration’s special master for executive compensation, said he is “very concerned” about the possibility his pay cuts may drive talent away from companies bailed out by U.S. taxpayers.
  
  “I’m very cognizant of the concerns expressed by these companies,” Feinberg [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 8:59am EST
  

• A thought on Clark

  A quick thought on our own Sen. Clark, who apparently has gotten herself engaged in a (relatively small) fracas over some comment she made to a left-wing blog. If you live in St. Cloud you often see her, sometimes with her husband, visiting with constituents. "Isn't she nice?" many' [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 8:47am EST
  

• You're missing the point

  I know counterfactuals and math are hard to fit on a bumper sticker. But one would hope that in an 800-plus word essay on economics (even if in Politico), some economic content could be included.Thus Menzie Chinn concludes a defense of the "jobs saved or created" story complete with [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 4:15pm EST
  

• The most important graph you'll see today

  The taxation story is not about the rich, folks. It's about the young earner. What this says is that, if you fully use the various transfer payments available to you as working poor (making $15,000) you can have goods priced at $40,000. If you earn $40,000' [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 10:27am EST
  

• Appreciation

  St. Cloud State University Athletics will salute all members of the United State Armed Forces and veterans during Military Appreciation Night at the Husky men's and women's basketball games against Winona State on Friday, Dec. 4.
  
  As a special recognition on Dec. 4, all curent and retired members of [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 6:14pm EST
  

• Best question I read today

  How can one insure against a volitional act? -- Sheldon Richman on the Stupak Amendment debate. Emphasis mine.
  
  If the Republicans were more willing to push this, they could show that the catastrophic plans in their proposal are the only ones that do not violate the concept [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 2:31pm EST
  

• We also have a hiring problem

  
  
  I simply want to display two graphs, both from the "JOLTS report" (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.) These are the rates at which labor is currently being hired and separated (fired/laid off only) as a share of employment. [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 9:27am EST
  

• test

  trying a post from my Android phone. if this works I am happy. [...]
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  Posted: November 10, 2009, 5:45pm EST
  

• test

  trying a post from my Android phone. if this works I am happy. [...]
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  Posted: November 10, 2009, 5:44pm EST
  

• It's a spending problem

  Analyzing the current fiscal trend and the Left's answer to it, Keith Hennessey concludes:
  This is why I try to encourage elected officials to use the phrase “spending discipline” rather than “fiscal discipline.” Our long-term deficit problem is a spending problem.Welcome to Minnesota, where Governor Pawlenty has announced he' [...]
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  Posted: November 10, 2009, 4:07pm EST
  

• Grandma and the necktie

  Arguing that “economic incentives in health care” are perverse, David Leonhardt asserts that “As long as doctors and hospitals are paid for each extra test and treatment, they will err on the side of more care and not always better care. No doctor or no single hospital can change that. [...]
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  Posted: November 10, 2009, 9:56am EST
  

• Representative Bachmann Gets It Right

  Last evening, November 9, the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Maria Anne "Hansi" Hirschmann" was the keynote speaker at a dinner fundraiser for Twila Brase's Citizens' Council on Health Care (CCHC). Hansi's talk was on freedom and more will be posted later.
  [...]
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  Posted: November 10, 2009, 8:26am EST
  

• Part of the job

  So now some station discovered that -- shock! horror! -- faculty at state universities get sabbatical. It's true! And it's in ... the contract we signed when we agreed to our job. Article 19, Section C.
  The purpose of a sabbatical leave is to enhance professional development, support [...]
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  Posted: November 09, 2009, 3:43pm EST
  

• Ein Volk, Ein Plan, ...

  Courtesy Steven Horwitz, from last weekend in Ithaca, NY. That sign is created by this group. If you scroll all the way to the bottom of their pages, you find a symbol for this group that would indicate the latter is parent of [...]
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  Posted: November 09, 2009, 11:08am EST