Talk to Me: The Fate of this Blog Depends on You
Trading Eights has existed for a little over a month, and we need to know: What do you think? Is this daily list of links with my commentary useful, or would you prefer full posts on several topics each day, a la Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias? Do you even bother to read the daily posts, or do you just check out the monthly commentaries (or are they too long)? What about The A-Team? Thumbs up or down? Be honest...we need to know. If we don't hear any feedback from you, we'll just assume no one likes the site and disband...and we know you don't want that to happen!
- Am I a Radical? -- Ezra Klein - Add lobbying reform to the list, and I think Klein and Yglesias are pushing this debate in the right direction.
- The Crackdown on Executive Pay -- Justin Fox - Excellent article, as usual, by Fox. Executive compensation is, for all the reasons Fox explains, a really tricky issue, one that I'm struggling with in my own forthcoming book. You won't do much better than Bebchuk if you're looking to understand it all.
- Organelle Simulated on Microchip for First Time -- Scientific American - One more step toward that brave new world...
- Will Economic Recovery Derail Foreign Policy Reform? -- Stephen M. Walt - Sadly, at the current rate, this is exactly where we're headed...
- Megan McArdle's Case Against National Health Insurance. Sort of. -- Ezra Klein - This is an important rebuttal because most people weighing in on McArdle's side are doing the same thing: Putting ideology over facts. The guys over at EconLog are the exception to this rule. (Though I don't appreciate when they group everyone who doesn't agree with them into the "Statists" bucket because health care is just different than most markets. Some of us may prefer a government-run health care system but look quite libertarian on many other issues.) It's not about ideology; it's about empirical and historical evidence.
- How Medical Breakthroughs Happen: A Response to Megan McArdle -- Ben Domenech - Outstanding article, explaining a point I made in my health care post but of course laying it out much better than I did. Bravo to Domenech! (And this, by the way, is one example of the facts vs. ideology thing I talk about above.)
- Comets Not So Likely to Smash into Earth and Kill Us All -- 80beats - Is this what passes for good news these days?