I was reading a story on the sports page of my local paper today about a college football coach who was explaining why the team he had been coaching for four years now had failed to show the results he said he would produce when he was hired. This was his first job as...
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Economic and political reforms have had mixed results in the former Soviet republics following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. One of the success stories is the Republic of Georgia. Elections held October 1 will replace the party responsible for that success, raising questions about Georgia’s future. Many of the former Soviet...
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President Obama has brought new meaning to “Obama 44″. It used to refer to his number as president. This week, he made it the number of fundraisers he’s attended in California. Which will be surpassed in a mere ten days. I unfortunately won’t be able to accept the emailed invitation I received today, but...
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President Obama took time out of his hectic campaign schedule this week for a visit with the ladies of The View. Host Barbara Walters asked him, “What do you say to people who say you’re trying to redistribute the wealth?” Obama responded that he and his wife Michelle pay taxes so other people’s public-school...
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As a young woman, I took over a business that was bankrupt: its liabilities exceeded its assets by a considerable amount, and the wolf was well and truly at the door. Lots of people thought I was foolish not to “erase” its debts through filing bankruptcy and be given a “clean slate” by the...
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Here I go, dating myself again. In the early 1960s, there was an absolutely horrible game show called “Queen for a Day,” in which each week several women would compete for who had the most pitiful life of hardships. At the end of each show, the audience would vote on who would be—literally, crowned—Queen...
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The secret ballot used in contemporary American elections inhibits a market for votes because there is no way to assure someone who pays you for your vote that you actually voted as you promised. That mechanism for preventing vote-buying is being undermined by the widespread use of absentee ballots, because voters can sell their...
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... he’s the incumbent, and it’s really hard to beat an incumbent. I’m not normally a betting man, but shortly after President Obama was elected, in 2009, I bet someone $5 he’d be re-elected. Recently, I mentioned this bet to some graduate students and one of them wanted to make the same bet, so...
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It seems that push has come to shove in some California cities. The Stockton City Council voted to give its City Manager the green light to file for bankruptcy—which could address the problem of that city’s debt, now thought to be in the range of $25-40 million. The City’s diminished income is not up...
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Proposition: Putative “public demand,” especially as expressed by voting, drives the political-governmental system. Elected officials and hence the bureaucracy subordinate to them may be viewed as perfect agents of the electorate. Adherence to this proposition characterizes the bulk of all analysis dealing with the growth of government in the West, regardless of analytical tradition...
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