Anyone home? Anyone at all? One of the unfortunate results of a bad housing market is an increase in vacant homes, which has grown by 43.8 percent since 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Homes can be vacant for a number of reasons, but are defined as both rental inventory that are unoccupied and [...]
USA
Is Eric Cantor the House of Representatives Last Valuable Player
From James Fallows in The Atlantic Last month I argued that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was doing more harm to the national interest, or at least doing so more noticeably, than any of his Republican or Democratic colleagues on Capitol Hill. Events during the budget/debt-ceiling “negotiations” suggest that he was just getting started back [...]
Defense Spending by GDP
The Economist has an interesting article on defense spending by GDP. ON JUNE 8th China’s top military brass confirmed that the country’s first aircraft carrier, a refurbishment of an old Russian carrier, will be ready shortly. Only a handful of nations operate carriers, which are costly to build and maintain. Indeed, Britain has recently decommissioned [...]
Another American War / Another Arab State
Thomas Ricks discusses six things to consider when thinking about an American no-fly zone over Libya. Here are some of the issues that need to be examined. Anyone who advocates a no-fly zone should be required to answer them. I wish everyone talking about imposing a no-fly zone on Libya would take a deep breath. [...]
Binary Politics
Good article in the Globe and Mail about how both the Republicans and the Democrats hate the vast majority of Americans who are moderates and near the middle of the political spectrum. Republicans love America, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart recently joked, but “hate about 50 per cent of the people living in it.” Democrats [...]
The effects of Global Thermonuclear War
As written by Wm Robert Johnson 12:00 midnight CDT 5/6 August 1988: The nuclear exchange is generally over. In the U.S. 5,800 warheads detonated totaling 3,900 mt. Soviet and NATO weapons successfully used in Europe numbered 3,300 (1,200 mt) (excluding tactical weapons). About 6,100 warheads (most of them American, but some Chinese, British, and French) [...]
Stimulus Packages From Around the World
Since all our countries (sans Germany) are offering stimulus packages these days, I thought I would see how they stack up against each other. The American one is by far the biggesest while Iceland’s economy took the hardest hit. Many economists believe a lot of the figures being announced involved a mixture of truly new [...]
