Louis Menand writes: Once, when winters were cold and the world seemed large, creatures roamed the earth who were permissive on social issues and at ease with big government, yet remained ever faithful to the gods of business and finance. Their principles were abstract but broad-minded: tolerance, free trade, and a belief in something called […]
bjn39coble
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
More on that suspicious Russian election; also some brief comments about changes in statistics since 1900
Scott Gehlbach writes: You may recall my guest post back in late January on electoral manipulation in Russia’s parliamentary elections. You raised a good question in your comments that I am only now able to address. In particular, you picked up on the statement in my post that “one might expect the distribution of precinct-level […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Class division within the Republican party
Walter Dean Burnham and Thomas Ferguson write about Romney’s combination of corporate support and difficulty connecting with evangelical Christian voters. They write: In the general election, moreover, Romney will have to reach well beyond his base, to independents and those less predisposed toward all things Republican. By contrast with past GOP nominees Romney’s appeal looks […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
“How To Be A Smarter Campaign Consumer”
I received the following email: Hi, I’m a freelance journalist working on a piece for The Daily Beast (you can see my past work here) tentatively titled “How To Be A Smarter Campaign Consumer.” The basic idea: Now that Rick Santorum has dropped out of the GOP primary and we’re set to enter the thick […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
World Bank bafflement
Via Felix Salmon, I encountered an article, “Obama’s Blunder at the Bank,” by my Columbia colleague Jagdish Bhagwati. It’s a strange article. I know basically nothing about the World Bank, so my criticisms here are not of Bhagwati’s policy prescriptions but of his abilities to communicate with laypersons such as myself. Bhagwati begins by criticizing […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Political scientists and proposed procedural reforms
John Sides gives some arguments (including citations to recent research) for why he thinks that term limits for Supreme Court judges would not have much effect on the politics of court nominations and confirmations. I respect where John is coming from, but at the same time I resist what I see as the occasional habit […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Veep Veep
During this lull in the campaign season, I’d like to repeat my recommend to presidential candidates that the best way to choose a vice-presidential nominee is to forget about ticket-balancing, shock value, winning the news cycle, and all the rest, and instead go for quality. As I wrote a couple years ago: John Edwards, Dan […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Those of us who always use our turn signals have nothing to worry about!
If ya can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. (See paragraph 11 here.)
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Dispute about ethics of data sharing
Several months ago, Sam Behseta, the new editor of Chance magazine, asked me if I’d like to have a column. I said yes, I’d like to write on ethics and statistics. My first column was called “Open Data and Open Methods” and I discussed the ethical obligation to share data and make our computations transparent […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
“Maybe good economics, but . . . probably not great politics”??
Josh writes that a British government plan of “cutting taxes for the rich while simultaneously raising the prices on the cheapest lunch options” is “maybe good economics, but . . . probably not great politics.” I don’t know enough about economics or about British politics to evaluate either of these claims on their own, but […]