Detailed Abstractions

News From Respected Sources

• Redistinguishing “Ought” from “Is,” or Why I Like the World Less Than Marvin Does 2012/02/08
  Let me be the latest to thank Marvin, for making an outstanding contribution to First Amendment scholarship that gives us this prime occasion for discussion, and Danielle, for making the discussion happen. I want to take issue with an important part of Marvin’s argument.  Because I’m going to be contrary, I first want to emphasize not just my deep admiration […]
  Gregory Magarian
• Architectural Trusteeship 2012/02/07
  With regard to traditional public forum spaces, the Supreme Court has imposed certain duties on governments as “trustees.”  These duties include a responsibility to ensure access to public parks, streets, and (most) sidewalks, and adherence to a principle of anti-discrimination (althouth it may not include a duty to preserve any forum spaces in perpetuity, o […]
  Timothy Zick
• Marshall Auerback: The Elephant in the Room is Spain, Not Italy 2012/02/07
  By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist and hedge fund manager. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives Another day andthe markets remain fixated on whether Greece comes to a “voluntary” arrangement with its creditors. The key word is“voluntary” because the myth of “voluntary compliance has to be sustained so that those deadly credit default swaps a […]
  Yves Smith
• Another Log for the Government Spending Multiplier Fire 2012/02/07
  At the center of the debate over efforts by policymakers to “stimulate” the economy with government spending is the issue of fiscal multipliers. Some economists argue that government spending can be a free lunch: an additional dollar of government spending increases GDP by more than one dollar. Other economists say that government spending is not so free: an […]
  Tad DeHaven
• Philip Pilkington: What Has Bill Gross Been Reading? 2012/02/07
  By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist based in Dublin, Ireland Question: what on earth has Bill Gross been reading? Gross has long been an acolyte of Hyman Minsky, or so he says. But his recent piece in the Financial Times entitled ‘Zero-Based Money Risks Trapping Recovery’ has a lot of people scratching their noodles. Look, Gross is trying tell the […]
  Yves Smith
• Is the U.S. Trade Representative a Closet Free Trader? 2012/02/07
  Not to get him in trouble with his boss, but U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk has been sounding like a free trader lately. I’m beginning to think Ambassador Kirk consumes the analyses we produce over here at the Cato Institute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies. Well, let me rephrase: that he consumes the meat of our analyses, but still h […]
  Daniel Ikenson
• The Psychology of Contract Precautions 2012/02/07
  Tess Wilkinson-Ryan (Penn) and I have a new draft paper up on SSRN: The Psychology of Contract Precautions.  From the abstract: “This research tests the intuition that parties to a contract approach each other differently before the contract is formed than they do once it is finalized. We argue that one of the most important determinants of self-protective b […]
  Dave Hoffman
• Gay Marriage Still Has an Uphill Climb 2012/02/07
  The right answer to the same-sex marriage question is to remove government from the marriage business altogether.  That’s a legislative matter, however, and not something the courts should decree. Until then, because state and federal laws confer benefits based on marital status, the equal protection provisions of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments require […]
  Robert A. Levy
• Bernanke’s Anti-Stimulus 2012/02/07
  One of the direct results of the Federal Reserve’s zero interest rate policies has been a massive reduction in interest income going to households. Since 2008, household interest income has fallen by about $400 billion annually. That’s $400 billion each year that families have not had to spend. Now of course you can also argue that families interest expenses […]
  Mark A. Calabria
• Mexicans Deserve Substance Over Style in Presidential Race 2012/02/07
  Josefina Vázquez Mota won the nomination of the incumbent National Action Party (PAN) for Mexico’s upcoming presidential election. Most of the coverage in the international media today focuses on how she is the first woman to have a real shot at Los Pinos (the official residence of the president of Mexico). However, the real story should be what new ideas (i […]
  Juan Carlos Hidalgo
• Appeals Court Upholds Gay Marriage, Sort Of 2012/02/07
  Today’s victory for equal liberty was narrow, but important nonetheless.  All that Prop 8 did was to deny gay couples the right to have their relationships labeled “marriage,” without any effect on the rights, privileges, and responsibilities attending that marital designation (which legal incidents California had already granted to gays who entered into civ […]
  Ilya Shapiro
• Our Constitution Is Out of Step with the Rest of the World 2012/02/07
  Is the Constitution out of date? That’s the impression that comes across from an article in yesterday’s New York Times, written by the paper’s crack Supreme Court reporter, Adam Liptak. It comes in turn from an article he points to by two law professors, David S. Law at Washington University in St. Louis and Mila Versteeg at the University of Virginia, sched […]
  Roger Pilon
• The Ethos of Universal Coverage 2012/02/07
  Associated Press photojournalist Noah Berger captured this thousand-word image near the Occupy Oakland demonstrations last month. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Many Cato@Liberty readers will get it immediately. They can stop reading now. For everyone else, this image perfectly illustrates the ethos of what I call the Church of Universal Coverage. Like everyone who […]
  Michael F. Cannon
• Same-Sex Marriage Opinion 2012/02/07
  The Ninth Circuit’s decision invalidating Proposition 8, which overruled the California Supreme Court’s holding that the state could not prohibit same-sex marriage, is here.  I am unpersuaded by the majority’s analysis. My take is that the panel majority really wants to say that any ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.  But due to a concern that the […]
  Gerard Magliocca
• Free Speech Architecture: Access for Diverse & Antagonistic Sources (#5) 2012/02/07
  In the previous posts, I argued that First Amendment precedent guarantees minimal access to certain essential speech spaces (like streets and parks) and permits government to pass laws opening additional spaces (from designated public forums to shopping malls to digital spaces). But Supreme Court decisions historically endorse access not merely for a few, ho […]
  Marvin Ammori