Tag Archives: Journalism

(Dan here….)  Via the New York Times comes an article on the Social Security shortfall.  No explanations given for what the shortfall context is, and not till the end was a fix suggested.  In comments calling SS a ponzi scheme (with no explanation) was common, or with the fix mostly was about lifting the cap.  Only one commenter referred readers to a Bruce Bartlett article from 2013 on the matter, From an e-mail by Dale Coberly Forgive me,  I have...

This month marks the centenary of the Treaty of Versailles, one of the agreements that brought World War I to a close. In a sense, the tables have turned. Whereas the treaty imposed huge reparations on Germany, today’s Germany has taken the lead in imposing a large debt obligation on its fellow eurozone member Greece. Although the creditor-debtor cards have been reshuffled since 1919, the game remains the same. Creditors want their pound of flesh, and debtors want to avoid giving it....

Interesting there is not a peep on this in the US and literally hundreds of thousands of women gathered in the streets of the Swiss cities. 40,000 in front of parliament in Bern and the same was repeated in the cities of Lausanne, Geneva, and other places. It is said the turnout is greater in numbers than the protest in 1991. Much of the same inequalities are recognized in Switzerland as they are in the US. Women lose is salary if they take time off. This...

The North Korea Food Shortage Deepens Yeah, I know, the Iran situation is more in the headlines, but nobody knows anything and everybody is shooting off their mouths.  I shall comment on that one when things settle down a bit. Instead I shall provide info less widely reported coming out of nkecon  on the still-unreported-in-MSM story about the increasingly bad food situation in North Korea (DPRK). There are multiple reports.  Drought has hit the...

For those [journalists] who want to keep their jobs, police raids and prosecutions are reminders when self-censorship isn’t enough to prevent their investigating abuses of the law, war crimes, fraud and corruption. The first home truth is that truth is loss-making for an enterprise; pauperizing for its reporter. The second home truth is that in wartime – that’s now – truth-telling may be a criminal offence which will get the reporter time in jail. Dances with BearsHOME TRUTHS AND PRESS...

Juan Cole at Informed Comment has a post up by Will de Freitas Should we cover the Sahara Desert with Solar Panels to Fight Climate Disaster? A map of North Africa is shown, with a surprisingly small box somewhere in Libya or Algeria shaded in. An area of the Sahara this size, the caption will say, could power the entire world through solar energy. Over the years various different schemes have been proposed for making this idea a reality. Though a...

No Fault Auto Insurance I am active in Michigan politics and many do not like me. The state’s no fault insurance has been a cost burden on many people. There is a lack of transparency in how the fees for the Personal Injury Protection portion of No Fault insurance were calculated, how fees to doctors and hospitals are set, and how much is in the PIP fund. Over the last couple of weeks Republican Senate Leader Mike Shirkey and the Republican House Leader...

by Dale Coberly The bad news is that we have slipped past the day when we could have saved Social Security from ever reporting “short term actuarial insolvency” by raising the payroll tax one tenth of one percent per year (about a dollar per week). This is only sorta bad because it doesn’t really matter . . . sorta. Social Security can still pay ALL promised benefits forever…by raising the payroll tax one tenth of one percent per year. The reason it...

Harvard University Professor Alberto Alesina has returned to the debate on budget deficits, austerity, and growth. Back in 2010, Alesina told European finance ministers that “many even sharp reductions of budget deficits have been accompanied and immediately followed by sustained growth rather than recessions even in the very short run” (my italics). Now, with fellow economists Carlo Favero and Francesco Giavazzi, Alesina has written a new book entitled Austerity: When It Works and When It...

If you are aware of John Helmer's blog Dancing with Bears, frequently linked to here, you may be interest in this. Otherwise, not so much.IrrussianalityBook Review – John HelmerPaul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa