News From Respected Sources

• Unemployment Insurance and Disability Applications 2012/02/22
  More than 8.5 million workers are now collecting disability insurance, in other words almost 6% of the labor force is officially disabled. Perhaps not surprisingly, disability applications shot up just as unemployment benefits started to exhaust. Applications are often denied so disability beneficiaries do not follow applications immediately. Denied applican […]
  Alex Tabarrok
• You might be irrational if… 2012/02/22
  Philosopher Michael Huemer on political irrationality and how to combat it:   […]
  Alex Tabarrok
• John O’Brien: Mortgage Settlement Fails to Address Banking Criminal Enterprise 2012/02/22
  Yves here. The release by San Francisco county assessor-recorder Phil Ting of a study of document irregularities in foreclosures has put a spotlight on the failure of Federal banking regulators and state officials to do anything beyond cursory examinations of servicers’ bad practices. If a country official with limited resources can show that there are wides […]
  Yves Smith
• MMT 2012/02/22
  The Washington Post has an article on a group of economists who work under the banner of "Modern Monetary Theory." […]
  Greg Mankiw
• Links 2/22/12 2012/02/22
  Are Pets Psychic? A Cambridge Scientist Believes So Wake Up World. I’m not impressed by the science, but the stories are still nice. Kim Dotcom wins bail in fight against U.S. extradition Reuters (hat tip Lambert) Facebook’s nudity and violence guidelines are laid bare Guardian (hat tip reader John L) Secretive Navy SEALs take starring role in new film Yahoo […]
  Yves Smith
• Politico: Schneiderman Caved to Administration Pressure on Mortgage Settlement, Did Not Get Tighter Release for Abandoning Opposition 2012/02/22
  If you were following the mortgage settlement negotiations, it was very clear than the decision of New York state attorney general Eric Schneiderman to abandon his role as the de facto leader of the opponents of the agreement, join a Federal task force to investigate mortgage abuses, and go silent on where he stood on the negotiations put the dissenters in d […]
  Yves Smith
• Private Prison Profiteering 2012/02/22
  Last week in this space, I posed the following two questions in connection with the prison industrial complex:  “Is it possible, that the Board of Directors of private prison companies . . . are literally strategizing ways to increase the prison population in the United States?  To effectively increase profits for shareholders, are private prison companies n […]
  andré douglas pond cummings
• Will Expiration of Tax Break Render Much of Mortgage Settlement Moot? 2012/02/22
  Even though the mortgage settlement deal was without a doubt massively lawyered from the bank end, and should have received similar levels of scrutiny from the Federal and state officials, a major fly in the ointment may have been overlooked. The tax rule allowing a reduction in mortgage debt not to be counted as income expires at the end of this year. As th […]
  Yves Smith
• A message for all our readers in the United Kingdom 2012/02/22
  From Scott Sumner, but endorsed by me in full: Take the current situation in the UK.  If I’m not mistaken, the British political system is different from that in America.  British governments are basically elected dictatorships, with no checks and balances.  Even though the Bank of England is independent, the government can give it whatever mandate it likes. […]
  Tyler Cowen
• Wolf Richter: Now a Housing Bubble in Germany 2012/02/22
  By Wolf Richter, San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Cross posted from Testosterone Pit. Germans are practically euphoric these days—compared to the dour mood that prevailed for nearly two decades following reunification, when real wages declined in a stagnating economy b […]
  Yves Smith
• Today at the Court: February 22, 2012 2012/02/22
  This morning at 10:00 we expect  one or more opinions, which we will be live-blogging. The Justices will hear oral argument in two cases this morning. Lyle Denniston has previewed the first case, United States v. Alvarez , in which the Court is considering the constitutionality of the Stolen Valor Act. In the second case, Blueford v. Arkansas, the Court will […]
  Kali Borkoski
• Cyberbullying and the Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys 2012/02/22
  (This post is based on a talk I gave at the Seton Hall Legislative Journal’s symposium on Bullying and the Social Media Generation. Many thanks to Frank Pasquale, Marisa Hourdajian, and Michelle Newton for the invitation, and to Jane Yakowitz and Will Creeley for a great discussion!) Introduction New Jersey enacted the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights (ABBR) in […]
  Derek Bambauer
• Politics, Copyright and the First-Amendment Commons 2012/02/22
  On the eve of the Republican primary in Florida, the Romney campaign started running a new television ad called “History Lesson.” Romney was coming off Newt Gingrich’s double-digit win in South Carolina and the momentum in the campaign for the 2012 Republican seemed to be shifting, perhaps decisively, in Gingrich’s favor. With only ten days between primaries […]
  Randy Picker
• Petition of the day 2012/02/22
  The petition of the day is: County of Los Angeles v. Association for Los Angeles Deputy SheriffsDocket: 11-891Issue(s): (1) Whether, under the Constitution, a public entity has the right to define the terms of a law enforcement officer’s employment so that when the officer is charged with a felony, the entity may suspend the officer without pay pending resol […]
  Kali Borkoski
• Philip Pilkington: The Liquidity Trap and All That… 2012/02/21
  By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist based in Dublin, Ireland Recently the mainstream press have done some rather interesting coverage of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Particularly good was the Washington Post’s attempt to spell out the key differences between Modern Monetary Theory and standard post-war Keynesianism. In their piece on MMT, the Post […]
  Yves Smith