Why strong regulatory agencies matter | The Center for Public Integrity

More deaths and injuries here than in Boston, but which one got more headlines?

Why strong regulatory agencies matter | The Center for Public Integrity: I have always believed that if we are doing our job right at the Center for Public Integrity, then our investigations should anticipate the news. That was the case on Wednesday. The Center posted an important story early that morning about the U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s failure to complete its investigations into chemical accidents in a timely manner. Further, we reported that a former member of the board believed the agency was being “grossly mismanaged.”
Later that same day, an explosion tore through a fertilizer plant north of Waco in Central Texas, killing more than a dozen people and injuring more than 150, authorities say.

Why the Environment’s Trashed, You’re Broke, and Wars Drag On

Why the Environment’s Trashed, You’re Broke, and Wars Drag On: How corporate power is ruining your life, explained in animated GIFs� �

mainly macro: The Stupid Cruelty of the Creditor

Hit'em again, hit 'em again, harder harder!

mainly macro: The Stupid Cruelty of the Creditor:
In the middle ages those who could not afford to pay their debts were sent to prison by their creditors. An efficient solution to the moral hazard problem? Hardly, because the chances that the debtor could earn some money to repay something to the creditor from a prison cell were not high. So countries gradually developed rather more civilised bankruptcy laws, like Chapter 11 in the US.
Yet we are seeing the equivalent of these medieval practices in Europe at the moment. Arguably the harm being inflicted on the people of Greece by its creditors is even more cruel, and more stupid. More cruel, because the harm is being done to those totally innocent of the original contract - children indeed, as Karl Smith notes. More stupid, because those doing the damage cannot see what they are doing, either by refusing to open an economics textbook, or believing that they somehow know better.

Brad DeLong : Europe Fails to Learn the Lessons of History

A marvelous, high-flying, multi-millenial overview of why Europe and the Euro are having so many problems even now. Be patient with the typos and read it all.

Brad DeLong : Europe Fails to Learn the Lessons of History: Notes on Political Union for Barry Eichengreen's "Future of the Euro" Conference, as Delivered: First, I would have to be even more rash than Charles le Temeraire, last duke of sovereign Burgundy, to opine about classical Dutch history with Jan de Vries in the room, but let me do so to point out that this session's topic, "political union", is a vague and sketchy concept. The political union of the strongest power in 17th century Europe, the seven United Provinces of the Netherlands, was made up of the components. First, there was a talk shop in the Hague--which had rather less power than is currently assembled in Brussels and Strasbourg. Second, the same guy, the Prince of Orange, was nearly always the stadthouder, the chief executive, of all seven provinces. Third, one of the provinces, Holland, was 60% of the total, and so if consensus was not reached could threaten to go it alone and do what was necessary--but when it did so take down names and have a long memory of who had played ball and who had not.

A Tax System Stacked Against the 99 Percent - NYTimes.com

A Tax System Stacked Against the 99 Percent - NYTimes.com:

LEONA HELMSLEY, the hotel chain executive who was convicted of federal tax evasion in 1989, was notorious for, among other things, reportedly having said that “only the little people pay taxes.”

Most of us know this already, but Joe Stiglitz says it so much better than I could. Read it all and weep—again.