Archive for 2016

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Holocaust as ‘white on white crime’ and other signs of intellectual decay at Oberlin. “I found the entire Facebook post of great interest, not just as a troubling sign of emerging hostility to Jews and Jewish concerns among self-proclaimed social justice advocates on left-wing campuses, but as an equally troubling sign of the degradation of intellectual discourse at such campuses more generally, as reason, compassion and just plain old decent manners are replaced with shrill sloganeering based on which group can most successfully proclaim itself to be a victim.”

On the one hand, higher education is more expensive than ever. On the other hand, it’s less valuable than ever. On the gripping hand, what are we going to do about this?

YEAH, THIS PRETTY MUCH NAILS IT:

MALLARDJUDY

OBAMAPHRENIA:

Shot: “We’ve recovered from the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.”

Obama’s Twitter account today.

Chaser: “President Obama Explains How Surging Bartender Jobs Are Unequivocally Good.”

Headline at Zero Hedge today.

The econo-bloggers there ask, “We wonder which ‘economy’ President Obama will discuss…The ‘Bartender’ Recovery,” which links to a chart showing the growth of waiter and bartender jobs versus manufacturing jobs since December of 2007. “Or the ‘Foreign Worker’ Recovery,” followed by a chart which shows the massive expansion of foreign-born workers since December of 2007.

Hangover: “Citi: World economy seems trapped in ‘death spiral.'”

Headline, CNBC today.

As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard adds at the London Telegraph, Jaime Caruana, general manager of Europe’s Bank for International Settlements, “said an ‘illusion of sustainability’ has blinded borrowers and debtors, lulling them into a false of security when credit was easy and asset prices were rising. This illusion can die in the blink of an eye. ‘The turning of the financial cycle can be quite abrupt,’ he said.”

We’ve seen this movie before, haven’t we? Just ask President McCain:

Update: And speaking of shots, chasers, and hangovers, “‘Incredible’! Obama admits lingering ‘hangover’ in jobs report (but guess who’s to blame!).”

Presumably, all those bartenders he’s given jobs to? (Err, including me, as I’m duly licensed by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission…)

YEAH, THEY’RE ALSO PRETTY MUCH DEFYING OBAMA: Lone Star Shale Producers Defy OPEC.

For a state that prides itself on being “bigger” in every sense of the word, Texas is managing to handle smaller oil profit margins awfully well, as a number of producers in the state’s two shale basins are keeping output up despite plunging prices. . . .

And even as some producers find ways to turn a profit with today’s profits, many in the industry that have seen their margins erased are nevertheless still busy pursuing a forward-looking strategy: drilling but not yet fracking wells. This approach essentially lines up projects to bring online the minute prices rise high enough to justify them. This so-called “fracklog” is a widespread phenomenon, and it’s growing. For Saudi Arabia and the rest of the world’s petrostates, that’s a terrifying prospect, because it means what if and when we see the global glut erased and prices start trending back upwards, these new American supplies will flood the market and bring those prices right back down again.

And while producers amass this fracklog, plenty of companies are innovating ways to keep output up despite the fact that America’s oil benchmark is currently lingering below $32 per barrel. The shale boom isn’t done yet.

The Frackers are doing more to save Western civilization than pretty much anyone else. Certainly more than the Obama Administration or the EU.

WASTING AWAY AGAIN IN AN OBAMAVILLE: The Streets of San Francisco: ‘Super Bowl City’ Meets Tent City. A city in the grip of a housing crisis just spent $5 million on the Super Bowl. Yes, people are angry.

Other than a temporary respite on election night when a candidate with a (D) after his name wins, what other emotion is the left capable of?

By the way, spot the buried lede! Far left Nation magazine suddenly discovers far left San Francisco is a basket case. Or as even the San Francisco Chronicle was forced to admit last year, “People come here thinking of this as the center of innovation and entrepreneurship, and they see a street scene that looks like something out of a Third World country.” These things happen when your last Republican mayor left office over half a century ago.

obamaville_11-21-11

TENNESSEE VOTES FOR ARTICLE V CONVENTION OF THE STATES.

Perhaps I should reread Mark Levin’s The Liberty Amendments.

I should also note that the Tennessee Law Review published a special symposium issue on constitutional conventions a few years ago. I wrote the Foreword, Sandy Levinson wrote the Afterword, and an all-star cast including Randy Barnett, Brannon Denning, Richard Epstein, Tim Lynch, Rob Natelson, and too many other luminaries to mention contributed the stuff in between. Here’s my contribution, which focuses specifically on spending. And here’s video of me talking about it at the Harvard Law School conference on constitutional conventions.

TOM MAGUIRE: Hillary-bashing on Goldman omits the Mitch McConnell connection. “First, forget about Jack Nicholson – she really was channeling her inner Mitch McConnell, who made exactly that argument on the Senate floor while opposing Sen. McCain on campaign finance reform . . . Secondly, how many Democrats are going to buy Hillary’s nuanced view that every Republican and possibly one or two Democrats are captive to their donors but she is not?”