Reading List of the Day 28 Jan 2010

Separated by a common tongue (and governing institutions)…

You can think what you want about American governing institutions, but I find it very frustrating when commentators don’t acknowledge that our institutions are both unusual (we have the only full presidential system in the developed world) and an important determinant of policy outcomes.

How true, how true.

So much of the history of environmental destruction is like this tale from Sweden. A lot of effort and destruction for a very short-term gain that is often significantly less than the economic return from a sustainable use of resources.

regardless of whether people were trying to drain and cultivate bogs, or if they were digging for peat and trying to process and sell it, there was a major disconnect between their high hopes and the actual outcome. Generally, these huge projects were undertaken, making huge dents into the ecology, for no long-term practical gain.

To put the recession’s labor- market impact into perspective, we compare the past two years to previous downturns, including the Great Depression. We also examine the data commonly used to assess labor market conditions. While unemployment rates and nonfarm payroll losses are widely reported, a firm grasp of what they measure is critical to understanding what they tell us about the current state of the labor market.

(Yet more) proof that most Americans favor higher taxes for the rich to pay for basic government services.

Oregon’s Sherwood Forest, take-from-the-rich strategy might appeal to legislators in other states struggling to bandage their budgets.