Guy Berger

Sounds like some of this stuff might cross over into libel territory. Guy

The best one I've heard - That's Where It's At. 2nd best is the one with "La Fiesta.". Guy

Interesting article (though I haven't read the paper in question). I think the headline is melodramatic. The empirical evidence on free capital flows and their relationship to growth in the developing world is definitely mixed, but that's a long way off from saying that poor countries would be better off without any foreign capital at all. And some skepticism is due about whether governments in those countries will necessarily make good regulatory choices. Damn two handed economists...

Amen to that. Nobody's ever going to change anything, unless they feel it in the pocketbook. Agreed... up to a point higher energy prices are actually a good thing since they wipe out some of the externalities from energy use (environmental***, geopolitical). Given a hypothetical choice between appropriate taxes and higher energy prices the latter is inferior - but that is not on the table. ***Assuming that higher energy prices don't cause people to switch excessively to environmentally inferior forms of energy (eg coal).

Demand for leveraged loans has sharply contracted in recent months. Guy

One more thing to add - banning "useless gas guzzler cars" is a greatly inferior solution from a policy perspective since the actual amount of gasoline used or pollution spewed or CO2 spewed (depending on what you are concerned about) matters a lot more. A guy who drives a Toyota Yaris 60 minutes to and from work every day is probably guzzling a lot more gas than the dude who brings out his Ford F150 twice a week. Well, car's pollution is more then an "annoying behavior", it's a health risk and I don't think that pollution taxes are enough. I mean that I don't think that you have any right to pose my health at risk because you can afford it. Let's say that I can pay 2000 $ of taxes per years for smoking my damn fags in public places, would it be OK for you? Same for industrial plants, let's say that they will cover your health insurance when you or your children got cancers because of them, is it a free society? Welcome to the free world. Yes... if smokers all paid sufficiently high fees for the privilege of smoking in public to cover the health damage they cause to those around them when smoking in public, then I think that would be a reasonable compromise. The same with pollution taxes etc etc. Guy Actually smokers do it, if you consider the government's high taxes on tobacco, at least over here. BTW we pay a lot of taxes on gasoline too. The point is that it's not enough for public health and enviroment. It might be questionable if one agree to trade his health with money. Personally I don't.

Well, car's pollution is more then an "annoying behavior", it's a health risk and I don't think that pollution taxes are enough. I mean that I don't think that you have any right to pose my health at risk because you can afford it. Let's say that I can pay 2000 $ of taxes per years for smoking my damn fags in public places, would it be OK for you? Same for industrial plants, let's say that they will cover your health insurance when you or your children got cancers because of them, is it a free society? Welcome to the free world. Yes... if smokers all paid sufficiently high fees for the privilege of smoking in public to cover the health damage they cause to those around them when smoking in public, then I think that would be a reasonable compromise. The same with pollution taxes etc etc. Guy

Part of living in a free society means that we put up with "annoying behavior" like cell phone conversations in public places, people driving useless gas guzzler cars*** and eating Chilean strawberries wherever the hell they want to. I don't think smoking in closed spaces is equivalent to any of those since it does actually poses a health risk. Guy ***Let me add that I'm all for carbon and/or pollution taxes.

Too bad... it would be interesting to apply these results to a cost-benefit analysis. Personally, I dig going to bars without that shit making the air unbreathable. Guy

One of my favorite BN album covers. (I like the music too.)

During the early 90s Sweden (don't know about Finland or Norway) recapitalized its banking system, on a relative scale much larger than the Fed's loan to JPMorgan (though as they say, "the night is still young"). Swedish taxpayers took on substantial credit risk, and didn't recover all their money (but probably avoided turning what was already a very severe recession into a complete implosion of their economy). I'm not that psyched about the increase in share price for Bear holders or the subsidy for JPMorgan to swallow Bear -- but I don't think a full-blown expropriation/nationalization package would have been politically feasible in the time needed. It was an ugly situation with no pleasant alternatives. Guy

Websites A podcast of Heidi Holland's interview with Mr Mugabe is available from Penguin. The Sunday Times, a South African newspaper, publishes an excerpt from the book. Book details Dinner with Mugabe: The Untold Story of a Freedom Fighter who Became a Tyrant By Heidi Holland Penguin South Africa; 250 pages; 210 rand

Part of the problem is that long-term medical studies can't always use controlled experiments -- that means you have to rely on statistical techniques to tease out causal relationships. And if the statistical techniques are not up to snuff scientists can get spurious correlations. In combination with distorted incentives for academics and scientific publications (I don't think the bias is solely with mainstream journalists), this can lead to incorrect research being published in the short term. Guy

Yup! :tup

I'd be interested to see the study itself. Statistics like this can be extremely misleading - if your chance of developing brain cancer was %.042 before using a cell phone, then if that chance doubled it would be a whopping %.084 - definitely a double in risk, but maybe not a huge health scare for the world. Two things to think about: 1) Dan's point -- without knowing the baseline, it's tough to assess the significance of a doubling in rates. 2) I don't know how global cell phone usage compares to cigarette or asbestos exposure -- so even if this does turn out to be a "massive public health problem", the individual risk may nevertheless be quite low. I haven't seen the paper and don't see any reason to dismiss this out of hand. This guy is not a crackpot but rather a well-respected surgeon. That said, without more details, I think some skepticism is in order. I am having some difficulty finding information about Khurana's actual study beyond this sensationalist article, so if someone has a link, please share.