I had the pleasure last week of attending the conference on Central Bank Governance And Oversight Reform at Hoover, organized by John Taylor. Avoiding the usual academic question of what should the Fed do, and the endless media question will-she-or-won't she raise rates, this conference focused on how central banks should make decisions. Particularly in the context of legislation to constrain the Fed coming from Congress, with financial dirigisme and "macro-prudential" policy an increasing temptation, I found these moments of reflection quite useful.
Dan was an important scholar of federal courts and criminal law and procedure. Perhaps less well known, he was also—based on his experiences as Deputy White House Counsel in the Obama administration, and then on the Intelligence Oversight Board—a hugely insightful analyst of national security law and policy. Numerous people in the Obama administration described Dan’s counsel on these matters as invaluable.
In this paper we extend the five prior analyses by identifying the changes in state proficiency standards between 2011 and 2013, the last year for which the relevant information is available. We show that many states have raised their proficiency bars since 2011. Overall, 20 states strengthened their standards, while just 8 loosened them. In other words, a key objective of the CCSS consortium—the raising of state proficiency standards—has begun to happen.
A special thanks to the good folks at nationalpastime.com for unearthing this tidbit: on this date in 1959, Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck arranging for four midgets, all dressed up as space aliens, to be helicoptered onto the playing field at Comiskey Park — the joke being that they’d arrived from another planet to help the ChiSox’s vertically-challenged double-play tandem of Nellie Fox and Luis Aparicio. Actually, the joke was on baseball that year: the “Go-Go Sox” made it to the World Series, air-raid sirens and all).
Peter Mansoor concluded his overview of NATO by writing, “fear of Russian revanchism has served as inspiration for the maintenance of a healthy military relationship among NATO allies… a pivotal, stabilizing role in European security, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.”
The United States and NATO did formally end the war in Afghanistan, amidst some ceremony, in December 2014. However, in many ways, it is hard to see that the changing of the guard was little more than the changing of a flag. And President Obama’s own Justice Department—for its part—is busily arguing in court that the war is not, in fact, over.
Senator Dianne Feinstein has been at the vortex of the debate about Edward Snowden’s disclosures since he exposed an array of National Security Agency surveillance programs in 2013. As chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from 2009-2014, and now the ranking minority member, Senator Feinstein has tried to help the nation strike the appropriate balance between security and liberty as she and her Senate colleagues examined NSA practices in light of the Snowden materials
Hoover fellow Terry Anderson discusses his (and Hoover fellow Henry Miller's) National Review article "How Taxing Organic Products Could Solve California’s Water Shortage." Anderson notes that California’s thirst for water won’t be significantly reduced until consumers are faced with a more realistic price for the “clear gold.” In that spirit, we propose a revenue-neutral tax on all organic products — food, linens, clothing, pillows, tobacco, etc. Taxation would reduce the demand for water-wasting organic products relative to non-organic alternatives, and thereby reduce some of the pressure on California’s dwindling water supplies.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan just named two new members of the state Board of Education — both supporters of the Common Core as well as charter schools. Hogan, a Republican, tapped Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and Andy Smarick, partner at Bellwether Education Partners, to take the open seats on the 12-person board created by the departures of Charlene M. Dukes and Donna Hill Staton.
"We should collectively be pleased by increases in income at the top, so long as they were not caused by taking ... from individuals at the bottom," wrote Richard Epstein of the Hoover Institution in 2013.
In their proposal “How Taxing Organic Products Could Solve California’s Water Shortage,” published last week on National Review Online, Anderson and Miller state the need for a revenue–neutral tax on all organic products (which would diminish their demand), while outlining how organic agriculture is less efficient and more wasteful than conventional and genetically engineered agriculture.
Britain outlined new legislation on Wednesday that will allow the Bank of England to complete its reforms under Governor Mark Carney, including plans to reduce the number of monetary policy meetings each year. The new Conservative government's agenda for the coming year, presented on Wednesday as parliament opened, outlined a new Bank of England Bill designed to strengthen the BoE's governance and accountability.
Some wonder whether the White House and the Silicon Valley companies are simply doing favors for each other because they share political leanings. “At the end of the day, I am skeptical that the Googles of the world are going to be as open to a Republican president,” said Lanhee Chen, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution who served as policy director of Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign.
