Bob Murphy has done a huge service by laying out clearly the economic reasoning behind my conclusions (here and here) that: (1) you can't make interpersonal utility comparisons and (2) utility is ordinal, not cardinal. His piece is not long and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in the discussion.
Since the Legislature is spending money about as fast as Silicon Valley can mint it, why not create a new state agency? Specifically, the Department of Recyclable Ideas Perpetually Shelved, or DRIPS. Consider what it could do for the thorny matter of tax reform. Rather than set up a time-consuming council of economic advisers to study the matter, as state Controller Betty Yee has done, DRIPS would simply dust off the 2009 plan crafted by the so-called Parsky Commission.
The past week has not been kind to Rep. Loretta Sanchez. First, her campaign-in-waiting fumbled her Senate announcement. Then, just a few days later while speaking to an Indian American group at the California Democratic Party State Convention, Sanchez made an insensitive gesture to signify the difference between Indian Americans and American Indians, forcing her to first run from reporters and then use her convention address to publicly apologize.
I'm always willing to be told that I'm out of date on something. Getting up to date is, after all, one of the main ways we learn. I'm highly skeptical about David's claim, though. For one thing, you would think that if Von Neumann showed this over half a century ago, my professors at UCLA, especially people like Armen Alchian and Jack Hirshleifer, would have known about it. I don't recall that they contradicted Paul Samuelson on this.
The California political establishment has passed the Fitzgerald Intelligence Test – that’s the author F. Scott Fitzgerald, who in 1936 had this observation: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."
Why the sudden change in availability? Blame or credit it to the ordinary folks who wanted to know where the Democratic frontrunner stood on the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership. That, and a series of bad news stories Mrs. Clinton no longer could ignore: Benghazi; her State Department emails; longtime Clinton sycophant Sidney Blumenthal being called the former Secretary of State’s Libya whisperer.
Speaking Thursday, Kevin Warsh told a conference held by Stanford University’s Hoover Institution that, by and large, gatherings of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee are stylized affairs that end up approving whatever the Fed chair wants. “I don’t think it’s terribly well understood” how FOMC meetings are structured, Mr. Warsh said.
More than 1,000 McDonald's employees protested outside the fast food giant's annual shareholders meeting in Chicago on Thursday, where they submitted a petition signed by more than a million people, demanding an hourly wage of $15 and calling on the company to support the right to unionize. For nearly three years now, a nationwide movement of fast food workers has been demanding higher wages. These workers often earn the legal minimum, which ranges from state to state in the US, but is normally $7.25 per hour or higher.
The fourth TEDxStanford took place at CEMEX Auditorium throughout the day on May 17, featuring 18 Stanford-affiliated speakers. Themed “Turning Point,” this year’s TEDxStanford revolved around the topic of transition. The TED talks, each spanning about 18 minutes, covered a wide range of subjects of different scope, from how the speaker embraced a transformative period in life to how technological changes have been altering society.
Russia has several obstacles to economic growth, including geopolitical tension, Western sanctions, and the decline in energy prices. Read these 10 experts for insight into this complex emerging market.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams said Thursday inflation targets are important in creating effective monetary policy. Speaking at a conference held by Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Mr. Williams observed briefly that price targets like the Fed’s 2% inflation goal make the Fed “formally and in fact accountable for the one thing a central bank can do: Control inflation.” Keeping price pressures at desired levels is “the one thing” a central bank “should own,” he said.
Feinstein is expected to discuss Congress' role in overseeing America's intelligence agencies, such as the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, and laws that govern their operations. The idea behind the Security Conundrum series is to invite national experts to Stanford to explore issues raised by the federal government's mass surveillance programs, especially in the area of national security, privacy and civil liberties.
Williams' remarks came in the context of a broader discussion over whether more public information about the Fed's decision-making boosts accountability, or muddles the process. Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor and an adviser to former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who is exploring a 2016 presidential bid, suggested the latter. The fact that the Fed publishes transcripts of its meetings five years after the event, he said, keeps policymakers from engaging in true debates at their meetings.
