The Daily Dozen
- Gmail sidesteps the App Store. "The technology behind the new Gmail could challenge Apple's control over third-party applications." Sounds good to me.
- Obama's plan for America's economy? Spend more, get less.
- A possible step towards setting the biological clock. Chinese report ability to grow new eggs in female mice. If they can figure out how to do it in humans, it may give many older women unable to conceive the hope of having children of their own.
- A conference on the law and economics of innovation. It's on May 7th here in Arlington -- a block from where I live. It's a co-sponsored by Microsoft and GMU. I just signed up and maybe you should too.
- 50 years of stupid grammar advice?
- The New York Times and Wall Street Journal debate the estate tax.
- The ESV Study Bible is the first study Bible available on the Kindle. It's being offered for $9.99 until June 1st. It's my favorite Bible translation and I just downloaded a sample to try it out. My first impression. I like the fact all the verse references are like hyperlinks. What I don't like is that Crossway didn't include any part of the actual Bible text to get a feel for what the references are actually like. At a minimum, they should have included part of Genesis as part of the sample. I like the idea of having this on my Kindle and am sure I'll eventually buy it, but think Crossway could have done even better with the sample.
- Steve Jobs' home office in 1982.
- Lobbying pays.
- Music for less: "With iTunes's prices going up to $1.29 for their more popular songs, you may want to bookmark Amazon's MP3 Store instead, where you can get the same music for less money."
- Communists: "[The] government disclosed that it had set limits on executive pay for 2008 at state-owned financial companies, the latest effort to address public concern over pay at companies controlled by the country's nominally socialist government... Total compensation for last year was capped at 90% of the amount executives received in 2007, the Ministry of Finance said in a brief statement. For companies whose revenue fell last year, the limit was set at 80%, it said. The statement, issued late Thursday, said the new rule had been issued "recently," but didn't elaborate. A ministry spokesman declined to comment Friday." Follow the link. You might be surprised.
- Is the index fund dead? I hope not. I agree with JLP, this is a dumb thing for SmartMoney to write. It's full of hindsight bias and unexpectedly bad for this magazine.
1 comment:
That picture of Jobs is so cool.
As for that article by Robert J Samuelson on Obama's economic policies: it's vague, leaps to unproven assumptions, and in the end, offers very little alternatives to today's problems, with the exception of a gasoline tax that he advocates.
Samuelson accuses Obama of trying to create a "post-material economy." Nevermind that Pres Obama never has proposed that.
Samuelson also accuses Obama of trying to "de-emphasize the production of ever-more private goods and services, harnessing the economy to achieve broad social goals." Nevermind that this too has never been part of the Obama proposals. In fact, the idea is to jump start the private economy with govt spending. This is classic Keynesian economics; one can disagree with it, but to accuse if trying to
Consider Samuelson on healthcare:
"Expanding health insurance might aggravate the problem. Many of today's uninsured get health care for free or don't need much because they're young."
First, when today's uninsured get healthcare, it's not for free...that's economics 101. It's paid for by others, but usually in the most inefficient way. But notice the casual way that Samuelson just throws this phrase in, even though it is totally incorrect.
As for expanding health care creating more of a problem...well, tell that to a family in need of health care. Of course Samuelson ignores the example of a country like Canada, that insures all at less cost and greater results. It seems that in Canada, as well as in many other countries, expanding health care has gone hand in hand with greater results.
In the end, all Samuelson really does is say basically that he grudgingly admits we have some problems, but because there are no guarantees we shouldn't do much of anything. The one glossing over the questions is Samuelson.
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