Uncle Sam, Addicted to Debt, Faces Future Military Bills
Military Academy cadets prepare for pass and review before a football game in West Point. 2008. Washington, DC is going through its annual budget charade. The US Congress is no longer capable of approving individual budgets and appropriations. Instead, a handful of leaders make omnibus deals among themselves and demand the people’s representatives rubber-stamp the […]
Trying To Save The Future – Redesigning Government
It took the Roman Empire about 314 years (Pi) to realize that it was just too big and complicated for one man to rule. The Tetrarchy was the system instituted by Roman emperor Diocletian (284-305AD) in 293 AD to govern the Empire by dividing it between two emperors, the augusti (presidents), and their junior colleagues […]
Will Human-to-Human Bird Flu (H5N1) Be the Long-Awaited “Disease X?”
By Lambert Strether of Corrente. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1(“Bird Flu”)[1], which is global, rapidly spreading, and “highly pathogenic,” is now infecting cattle, and (in the United States) at least one human. (Bird flu first emerged in China in 1996 in geese; from a useful potted history). The New York Times asks: “Is Bird Flu […]
An Added Perversity of the $8 Cap on Late Fees
Co-blogger Vance Ginn has nicely laid out some of the perverse, probably unintended, but definitely foreseeable, consequences of the federal government’s proposed $8 cap on the amount that credit card companies are allowed to charge credit card holders when they are late on a payment. I want to point out two other consequences, both of […]
