On Michael Brown and Darren Wilson
Dumping my thoughts here. Brown and his family and community obviously got a rotten deal here. It seems very unlikely that Wilson’s behavior was completely appropriate; that Brown would simply attack...
View ArticleSometimes liberty is finite and must be redistributed
The Civil Rights Act was a triumph of people willing to recognize that, to increase the liberty of black Americans, you had to reduce the freedom of whites to practice discrimination. By 1964, the 1st...
View ArticleFreedom by vote
I’m already seeing folks in my Twitter feed assuring themselves that Ireland’s recent marriage equality referendum could never be repealed. The danger of freedom-by-majority is that public opinion is...
View ArticleObligatory 2015 Marijuana update
The minimal evidence we have of marijuana usage harms keeps withering away under more careful study, but the very real harms of police enforcement go on. I’ve really stopped paying attention to this...
View ArticleWhy wouldn’t a Basic Income be consumed by inflation?
Interest in the Basic Income is definitely picking up. This recent piece from Andrew Flowers, like most, doesn’t at all mention the possibility that the BI amount could be somewhat or completely eaten...
View ArticleRevisiting the outcomes of the 21th century Chinese import boom
The conventional wisdom among economists is that the post-2000 Chinese import boom—which we know rapidly devastated the American manufacturing base—was overall good for the U.S.; that (as I argue)...
View ArticleThe Google Memo
I had a great conversation with Kathleen about the “Google memo”. We talked about her experiences and the greater context of several previous generations of women from the trailblazers to those who...
View ArticleMonuments to a Government’s Failure
The Civil War is a strange case where the oppressors and terrorists, upon losing, were basically let alone to continue countless awful misdeeds, and the biggest slave owners retained all the power of...
View ArticleProtesters, MLK, and Partisan Urges
Young protesters urgently need to go watch “Selma” and in general pause and think, “what would MLK do?” The Selma marchers gracefully expressed their humanity and decency with their faces visible, and...
View ArticleThe time is right for Annual Leave reform
The United States is, save a few tiny islands, the only place in the world where employees have no guaranteed paid vacation or holidays, and there’s simply no great excuse. The effect of this gigantic...
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