State of the Nation After 9/11/09

Oh man, where to begin.  I think I’ve been a little frustrated lately because I haven’t written in a while.  So let’s get it out there so I can move on.
National Tea Party, 9/12
This last Saturday was the National Tea Party Day in DC.  The Tea Party is a rallying cry for essentially Jeffersonian anti-big [...]

Labor Costs

One of the topics I want to study more about is what we’re all going to do in the future for work and jobs.  Part of the sharp upheaval of the 20th century of rapid economic development was that a stable career was not sustainable except for certain professions.  It is true in the US [...]

Surpluses and Shortages

I’m moving out of my Georgetown rowhouse and just started my job, so I’ve been a little busy and haven’t been able to write much.  That’s one reason Twitter is so great — I’ve been able to just send some quick tweets (the other reason it’s so great is its generativity (see Jonathan Zittrain) — [...]

We Want No Taxation, No Representation

Financial time bombs are no longer shocking to discover these days.  Collateralized debt obligations, the American auto industry, real estate, credit, struggling state government balance sheets, etc.
IRC Stupidity
Yesterday Obama gave a speech on how health care needs to be fixed immediately as costs are spiraling out of control.  The New Yorker just had a good [...]

Big, Interesting, Mysterious Pragmatic Problems

I’ve just finished a master’s program full of amazing classmates seeking policy solutions to some of the toughest problems the US and international institutions have to currently deal with.  For my part, I deeply love to spend a lot of my recreational thinking time searching for gaps in solutions to problems — entrepreneurial thinking — [...]

Recruitment

I was having lunch with a couple buddies of mine, one of whom took Michael Scheuer’s “Al-Qaeda and the Global Jihad” class with me.  He reminded me of one of Professor Scheuer’s best points made during the semester.
I might have forgotten some of the details, so I apologize, but I hope to capture the main [...]

Fear in My 31st Year

The economic numbers are getting bad, worldwide. The IMF predicts almost stagnation for this year in terms of worldwide growth. Unemployment numbers in the US came out at 7.6% this morning, much lower than unofficial estimates at around 14%ish. The newest Economist cover jokes about the return of protectionism by showing a [...]

Casualties of Stock Market Warfare

A friend of mine linked to a blog post from Ivan Krstić about a massive short squeeze on Volkswagen stock back in October of 2008. Ivan does a great job of explaining what happened (so read that first), but I wanted to build upon the story.
Porsche vs. Traders
Basically, a bunch of hedge funds were [...]

Interesting Economic Datapoints

So I’m done with this semester and I was just watching C-SPAN2, which was covering the Senate vote on the automaker bailout.  The vote failed 52-35 or so.  Dow futures were down -325 around the time of the vote.
I am still cash but am getting a bit more antsy to buy than I was before.  [...]

Hawai’i Trying to Be a Better Place

[NOTE:  Some of the stats used in this article are outdated but I think they still capture the depth of Hawai'i's energy risks.]
Hawai’i wants greater energy independence and is taking active steps and forming policies to do so.
This has fascinated me since this summer when I went to visit my brother on O’ahu.  I stayed [...]