03 | January | 2013

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

The truth about all those ‘subsidies’ for ‘Big Oil’

Mark J. Perry | January 3, 2013, 5:22 pm

Do a Google search for the term “subsidies for oil companies” and you’ll get more than 600,000 results. Try a search for “subsidies for Big Oil” and you’ll get almost 700,000 results. The term “tax breaks for Big Oil” has almost … read more >

146

Economics, U.S. Economy

Double taxation of dividends: Going in the wrong direction

Alex J. Pollock | January 3, 2013, 1:28 pm

From an economic and financial perspective, one of the worst things about Washington’s “fiscal cliff” tax deal is that it increases the double taxation of corporate dividends. Adding to the 35% that dividends are first taxed at the corporate level, … read more >

Image Credit: DrSmith 7383 (Flickr) (CC BY 2.0)

Foreign and Defense Policy, Terrorism

Al-Awlaki gets his day in court

Gary Schmitt | January 3, 2013, 11:18 am

On Wednesday, Judge Colleen McMahon of the Manhattan federal court rejected an effort by the New York Times and the ACLU to use the Freedom of Information Act to compel the Obama administration to fork over its classified legal opinion … read more >

Economics, U.S. Economy

Geography and inequality

Andrew Biggs | January 3, 2013, 11:14 am

In a new paper published in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Enrico Moretti of UC Berkeley finds that much of the increase in income inequality seen in recent decades is offset by changes in the cost of living for … read more >

Image Credit: Glaxo Smith Kline (Flickr) (CC BY-S.A. 2.0)

Foreign and Defense Policy, International Organizations

World Health Organization obfuscation harms action against dangerous medicines

Roger Bate | January 3, 2013, 11:02 am

In my book Phake: The Deadly World of Falsified and Substandard Medicines, I stress the difference between substandard medical products and deliberately falsified ones. The latter are made by criminal enterprises that have no interest in the contents of their … read more >

Foreign and Defense Policy, Terrorism

How Obama preserved rendition

Marc Thiessen | January 3, 2013, 10:50 am

Under Obama, not only are we killing rather than capturing most of the terrorists we find –when we do actually capture someone, we hand them over to foreign governments for interrogations whose “harshness” we cannot control. read more >

Carpe Diem

Thursday morning links

Mark J. Perry | January 3, 2013, 10:21 am

1. Ward’s Auto predicts that December SAAR car sales will be 15.7 million; if so, it will be the best sales month since December 2007. 2. CoreLogic reports that foreclosures declined nationally in November by 23%, as the U.S. housing … read more >

The Uses of Scandal
One of the greatest uses of scandal is to vividly demonstrate what new laws are needed and to create the political conditions to get them enacted. […]
Lean In… to Government?
Sheryl Sandberg's runaway best-selling book Lean In has managed to offend both the Left and the Right. Sandberg touts female hard-headedness, yet also calls for an elaborate government- and employer-supplied support system for women. […]
Are American Voters Racist?
Racial prejudice plays a very small role in American politics, but a highly disciplined sense of self-interest on the part of one group may play a very large role in the way the federal government functions. […]
The Perpetual Passion for Paper
Paper is becoming less important in some respects, but its strengths — prestige, utility, permanence, and security — are more essential than ever. […]