March 2010
101 posts
Times have changed | Ezra Klein →
“The giants of past decades were not necessarily smarter or better people. What’s different is that those men (in the mid-1970s, there was not one woman in the Senate) had no hesitation about their entitlement to rule. They never went to town meetings where constituents had read pending legislation on the Internet and asked detailed questions about Section 547 — indeed they...
The problem of food fraud | Ezra Klein →
“And last year, a Fairfax man was convicted of selling 10 million pounds of cheap, frozen catfish fillets from Vietnam as much more expensive grouper, red snapper and flounder. The fish was bought by national chain retailers, wholesalers and food service companies, and ended up on dinner plates across the country.”
Sometimes third-party payment *lowers* cost |... →
“The point is that large buyer groups, structured incentives for patients to consume certain products, and formularies (“a mechanism that allows a buyer to identify a therapeutically similar treatment as a viable substitute for a patented treatment”) all can help lower cost.”
Why wine isn’t an investment | Felix Salmon →
“This strategy is all well and good so long as there aren’t enough wine investors to move the market. But if wine-as-an-investment ever takes off, that’s certain to significantly increase the supply, and therefore decrease the price, of good middle-aged wines being sold before they get too old. And when that happens, the returns from a wine-investment strategy could easily turn...
It's Not Safe To Go Back In The Water. It Will... →
Another Reason for Congestion Pricing | Yglesias →
“We should charge people a fee to drive on crowded roads at peak hours. If you look at it in strict dollars and cents terms, the policy looks great. A relatively small fee can eliminate large economic losses due to congestion, and then the fee can finance useful public services or reductions in other taxes. But when you add in the fact that commuting time makes people miserable, you can see...
Taxpayers to make $8 billion off of Citibank? |... →
“When all is said and done, the financial rescue will probably cost about a percentage point of GDP, and maybe even a bit less than that. Compare that with the savings and loan rescue in the 1980s, which cost 3 percent of GDP, and we’re doing okay.”
Intermountain Healthcare | High Performing... →
Much, much more about Dr. Brent James and “the best example of how to actually change the health system”.
There Has To Be Something Between Militarism And... →
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative: My weekend with... →
“I was happy to see unanimous support from the environmental panel for the carbon tax. I was unhappy to see how this support was spun. The worst were the idiots that dismissed it as an ‘old idea’.”
Man Versus Afghanistan | Robert Kaplan | The... →
This article by Kaplan is unusually thought-provoking, for him. I do not agree with much of it, but I had to think about why.
Should You Hire Someone Who's Overqualified? |... →
“If workers are given autonomy and made to feel valued and respected and that they can actually have an impact, many of those negative consequences that usually cause companies to steer away from hiring overqualified workers can be mitigated”
Grand Old Party: S&M Nightclub Edition →
Clearly the feel-good story of the day. “The Republican National Committee gave nearly $2,000 to a Southern California GOP contributor for meal expenses at Voyeur West Hollywood, a lesbian-themed California nightclub that features topless dancers wearing horse-bits and other bondage gear, according to newly filed disclosure records.”
Canada 150: Towards a new Liberal-NDP coalition? |... →
“It would simply be asinine for everyone to sit around and let Stephen Harper run everything for another two or four years when a stable Liberal-NDP arrangement (with or without Bloc support) could be envisioned.”
“Let’s assume, for the sake of the argument, that Canada’s Access to...”
– Access-to-Information request on Rights and Democracy ignored - The World Desk - Macleans.ca
Don’t be a Grin F***er | Mark Suster →
“People started to believe that there was real intellectual insight into the bullshit PowerPoint slides and customer surveys they were spitting out. By “people” I mean the people who were on the project. By “people” I do not mean the rest of us. Most people I knew were walking the halls talking cynically (it was London, after all!) about “integrated strategy” but then we’d go to company...
Over the last two months, I’ve written two long-ish articles on healthcare spending for Courtyard’s client newsletter. Might as well link them up here:
Tackling the 20%: Getting Serious about Saving: “As budget debates kick off across Canada, many provincial governments are asking: can we meaningfully reduce healthcare spending without harming patient care? Although opposition...
Can we control costs without Congress? | Ezra... →
“It is a sad commentary on Congress that the most promising cost control in the Affordable Care Act is the one that takes much of the responsibility for controlling costs away from Congress”
Welfare Queens Against Health Care reform |... →
“Contempt for people who “just want freebies” is being expressed by a Medicare recipient and farmer. Agriculture, of course, is the most-heavily subsidized industry in the United States.”
Margaret Wente’s column on Monday about the passage of the Affordable Care Act in the US is conclusive proof that a female newspaper columnist is just as likely as a male blogger to make a hash of the facts to advance a “provocative” argument.
I’ve been stewing over this ridiculous column all week, because (a) I spend far too much time reading blogs about US healthcare;...
David Frum and the Closing of the Conservative... →
Funny how this is making Frum look like some kind of intellectual hero. Let’s not get carried away.
The Future History of the Arctic | Tyler Cowen →
Would like to read this.
The Canadian Banking Fallacy | Peter Boone and... →
In short: if the US had 4 or 5 big banks like Canada, those banks would be way, way too big.
Putting the foreign-ownership cart ahead of the... →
Foreign-owned companies are more productive than Canadian-owned, and invest more in technology.
The Realest Foreign-Policy Discussion To Ever... →
“What are the implications of a peace deal with a movement previously known for oppressing women, ethnic and religious minorities? Will protection of rights be weakened on paper or in practice? Will a proposed blanket amnesty attempt to exclude prosecution of war crimes?”
The Dense States of America | Kottke →
“If the population density of the United States was equal to that of Brooklyn, the entire US population would fit into New Hampshire.”
RT @ezraklein: RT @benpolitico: I kind of like Big F-ing Deal as successor to Square Deal, New Deal, New Frontier
Ontario's budget will just delay the pain |... →
And here’s the counterpoint from Jeff Simpson. A nice example of Simpson really going on a winder about a concrete issue instead of rambling on about Uncle Fred. But like the Star, he fails to identify the tangible consequences of not reducing the deficit. Given that neither side will do that, it’s hard to imagine having a reasoned debate about what level of pain is justified to avoid...
Move carefully on provincial deficit | Toronto... →
Editorials that defend the status quo are such a waste of time. Especially when they are so illogical and hand-wavy.
First: If all of the excess spending were related to one-time stimulus, then it would be fine to say we won’t cut that right now, but we will cut it later. That would help to limit the impact on the province’s credit rating, too. But the deficit isn’t just caused...
RT @G_Smitherman: Our city doesn’t need a broom - it needs a power wash. Fixing the #ttc means getting the little things right: http://b …
I think Coyne and Wells are both right - Harper is too conservative for me to like him, & not enough to respect him http://j.mp/9j72Z3
Profits = Freedom →
There are many reasons why someone would want to start a company. There’s the pursuit of wealth, glory, and fame, but above all, I believe most founders are searching for freedom. Freedom to run…
A Global Neighborhood →
Lots of folks have linked to this little chartlet, which reveals that if the entire population of the United States lived at the density of the New York borough of Brooklyn, then it would fit…
How the rules get written | Brian Topp →
“In future, a Prime Minister who advises the Governor-General to padlock our Parliament in order to avoid accountability on a great public issue (as opposed to a routine proceeding) is in violation of a direct order from Canada’s only legitimate and elected democratic body — the House of Commons.”
The Meaning of Statistical Significance →
Science News has a good piece by Tom Siegfried on statistical significance and what it means. Siegfried covers a lot of ground including Ioannidis’ argument, Why Most Published Research…
RT @jcohntnr: House passes #hcr bill 219-212. Dem members break out in chant “yes we can”
RT @felixsalmon: Every time you make a powerpoint, Edward Tufte kills a kitten: http://bit.ly/dk3fwF #yournewwallpaper
An Influential Idea I Didn’t Get in a Book →
As long as we’re talking about intellectual influences, I thought I might talk about an idea that’s important to me that, as best I can tell, I thought up all by myself. I don’t want to claim that…
NDP MP3 player levy? What BS. Let the market figure this one out - as it is already doing, e.g iTunes sales volumes http://j.mp/9g2Eeh
Everyone should read harper’s 2003 civitas speech (@inkless_pw) - see what demons torment him http://j.mp/96LJ72
The blameless Spotted Owl →
There’s a nice empirical post-script to the debate over the economic effects of classifying the Spotted Owl as an endangered species. Freakonomics cites a study putting the effect at $46 billion,…
"Apparently, ‘open’ platforms are wonderful as... →
“Apparently, ‘open’ platforms are wonderful as long as they help fuel the platform originator’s proprietary cashcows. Windows then, Android now.” - Microsoft passes the “choice” bludgeon against…
Pre-modern blogs →
From the New York Review of Books blog (on Tumblr no less!), a consideration of some pre-blog and pre-Twitter writing that is bloggy in nature, including documents written of the events in London…
RT @InklessPW: the EU, US and UK respond to the Harper-Cannon no-condoms-for-Africa policy — and it’s unanimous! http://bit.ly/bwvaJ5
RT @acoyne: All together now: Take The Cab!!! RT @natnewswatch #TTC Chair #Giambrone expensed more than $3,000 on cabs last year http:// …
The corporate tax on workers and consumers →
One of the NDP’s lines on the budget - the very first words spoken by Jack Layton in his reaction during the CBC coverage - is to denounce the continuation of the corporate tax rate reductions that…
Kaplan On Afghanistan McChrystal →
This piece is pretty much everything I dislike from journalism: an exploration of whether A Great Man can overcome History and Structural Factors given enough Gumption and Effort. That’s Kaplan’s…
Small steps toward a better world →
In Hawaii, Kaiser Permanente has started a pilot project that churn through its database of patient data to predict which patients might need which tests - and then sends individuals email alerts…
The Jenner & Block Lehman Report and Lack of... →
I’m still going through the Dodd Bill.
So: The Lehman Report.
1. First of all why don’t we take the rest of the money for the FCIC (“Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission”) and just give it to…