Economics

Social Security Shell Game

This entry was posted in bush Economics Federal Government Republicans on by

No surprise, it is the bushter himself moving the shells around. While he pretends that younger workers will benefit from his proposals the truth is, well, different. Read this from the Minnesota Star Tribune for pointers to just a few misdirections.
There are a lot of changes I’d like to see made to Social Security starting with separating its accounting entirely from the general fund and ending with, yes, privatization some time in the future.
Based on their current presentations I have zero confidence that the bush administration can or even wants to implement a viable process to accomplish this. But, then, these are the folks that brought us that fine prescription drug plan a while back.
Via Talkleft.

How Much Are You Paying Your Stock Broker?

This entry was posted in Business US Capitalism Economics on by

And should you be paying that much?

A model that assumes stock market traders have zero intelligence has been found to mimic the behaviour of the London Stock Exchange very closely.

Well, maybe, maybe not:

However, the surprising result does not mean traders are actually just buying and selling at random, say researchers. Instead, it suggests that the movement of markets depend less on the strategic behaviour of traders and more on the structure and constraints of the trading system itself.

Whether you are going to throw darts, employ a broker, or make your own buy/sell decisions spend some time learning the basics!

Guantonamo Prisoner’s Rights

This entry was posted in bush Constitution Domestic Terrorism Economics Federal Government Libertarianism US Foreign Policy War on Terrorism on by

Steven Taylor gets it right with regard to US District Judge Green’s ruling that the Guantonamo Bay prisoners have constitutional protections:

While I am amenable to the argument that non-citizens may not have the same rights under the Constitution as citizens (depending on the exact circumstances), I do adhere to the notion that there are fundamental hunan rights, many of which are, in fact, detailed in the US Constitution. As a result I cannot abide by the concept that we have the right to indefinitely detain human beings who �might� be a threat. Either they are a threat or they are not, and there needs to be a legitimate process by which to determine that fact.
The issue to me is that there has to be some standard applied to these detainees, and since it seems we have been unable to construct a viable one, I am not sure the proper course isn�t the Constitution.

The key is that as human beings we all have certain fundamental rights. That some of them are detailed in the US Constitution does not restrict their application to only US citizens.

Liberal Reading

This entry was posted in Economics on by

That would be classical liberal reading!
As economics and law seem to play a large role in many blogospheric conversations I suggest that everyone commit to reading one article per day from the Inaugral Issue of The NYU Journal of Law & Libery:

The NYU Journal of Law & Liberty is dedicated to providing a forum for the critical discussion of classical liberal legal scholarship. It aims to explore issues, such as the nature of rules & order, legal philosophy, theories of rights & liberty, constitutional law, jurisprudence, legal history, and historical & contemporary legislation.
The Inaugural Issue of the Journal examines the lifework and thought of F.A. Hayek, perhaps the 20th century�s greatest proponent of classical liberalism.

Here is the Inaugural Issue table of contents.
Via Division of Labour.